Darkest Delirium
by mellowenglishgal
Summary: With Aeron consumed by bloodlust, Kane brings in the big guns; Serafina, an ancient Seraphim warrior, who took Aeron as her boy-toy in Olympia. 2000 yrs later, she brings here hilarious personality and horde of delinquent kids to bring the Lords to life. Ties with 'Uilleam', and Strider's story. REWRITE!
1. 01

**A.N.**: Recently got back into LOTU, after a nine-month hiatus! I was disappointed with _Secrets_, you see, and just the first two pages of the prologue for _Surrender_ had me convulsing in my seat with the Sueishness of it all. I will however endeavour to try and get through it, if only for the sake of knowing what's going on with Torin, Kane and Paris!

_...Surrender_ finished: NO TORIN WHATSOEVER. A dash of Paris, and some hair-raising news about Kane. Me wants him. I could so be the keeper of Irresponsibility! Let me be the keeper of Irresponsibility, GS, I'll take such good care of Kane! GS really needs to get back to her boys being the main characters, not the hair-raisingly Sue-ish and nail-grating Harpies.

I decided that, in keeping with Serafina's personality, she wouldn't be the type to lose her sanity, even if she was possessed by a devil. Since I adore Immortals After Dark, in which there are Demonarchies of, you've guessed it, _demons_, I'm differentiating between the two (since I intend to interweave the characters of both series) by naming the LOTU demons as 'devils' and the IAD demons as 'demons'.

* * *

**Darkest Delirium**

_01_

* * *

Vengeance. _Noun_: Punishment inflicted in return for an injury or an offense; retribution.

* * *

"_He_ _who_ _controls_ _others_ _may_ _be_ _powerful_, _but_ _he_ _who_ _has_ _mastered_ _himself_ _is_ _mightier_ _still_". Taoist philosopher Lao-tze.

"_There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness but of power. They are messengers of overwhelming grief and of unspeakable love_." Washington Irving.

"_What though the radiance that was once so bright be now forever taken from thy sight, though nothing can bring back the hour of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower; we will grieve not, rather find strength in what remains behind_." Poet, William Wordsworth.

* * *

_Aeron crouched in the corner of the cell, his body battered and bloodied from his many rages. The pain didn't bother him, though. No, it strengthened him._

_Kill, kill, kill._

_He had to escape this prison. A prisoner inside my own home. Bloodlust held him in a tight clasp, squeezing, squeezing…so much so that he saw the world in a haze of reds. He couldn't eat without imagining his knife slicing through Danika's neck—then her sister's, her mother's, her grandmother's. He couldn't breathe, sleep or move without imagining it. _Kill_._

_For so long, he'd hoped and prayed he would lose this desire to kill. But every day, the urge grew stronger. His friends no longer visited him except to slip a tray of food into his cell; it was as if they'd written him out of their lives._

Kill, kill, kill_. He needed out of this dungeon. Needed to destroy. Then the desire would leave him. He knew it. And oh, he could almost taste those deaths in his mouth. Yes, he needed out._

_No more waiting. No more hoping for peace. He'd do what was necessary, what he'd been commanded._

* * *

The atmosphere in the fortress could not have been more different since the Greek contingent had been reluctantly invited into it by the Hungarian Lords. Then, Distrust—that beautiful demon housed by the male they had all once adored more than a brother, Baden—had been rife, the past colouring perceptions of the present, and with just cause.

Aeron, once stabbed in the back by Sabin, was now chained in the fortress's dungeon. Despite that, despite the frequent and very imaginative curses echoing from the deepest cell, the roars that rent the midnight air, waking them all, the rest of the fortress was _alive_. Dark and dreary it was, yes, but the honey-coloured Ashlyn was seeing to the decoration of the fortress, adding knick-knacks and furniture, turning the dilapidated and only partially-modernised fortress into a home, not just a stronghold for warriors who were Spartan to their core and out of necessity. Things got damaged a lot when the Lords were around, to put it mildly.

There were things lacking, Kane was sure he wasn't the only one who felt it. The entertainment-room may be more tricked out than any frat-house, but, and here his brief months of solitude doing his own work for Sabin in the South came out, the kitchen was barren, cold, rarely used because none of the Lords had ever bothered to learn how to cook. Well, Paris tried to bake occasionally, but his efforts were so laughable that they did usually just laugh, at him, at each other.

As the distrust had ebbed, friendship warming, fraternity returning to their once-again united forces, laughter had come more easily. Catching up on what the other Lords had done the past few millennia hadn't been that difficult; the peace-seeking Lords had found their haven, this fortress, yet they did not truly _live_. Paris alone seemed acclimated to the modern world, with his movies, video-games and irreverent t-shirts. The other Lords existed, had existed, from Maddox's death-curse one night to the next: Lucien was tugged and pulled by the spirits he had to escort: Reyes now cut himself so deep sometimes Kane could see bone: Torin—poor, irreverent, heart-achingly lonely Torin—was recovering from a near-decapitation, roiling in his self-loathing guilt over the plague that had swept Budapest.

Kane knew self-loathing well.

He would have spent more time with Torin, if he didn't think his mere presence in the suffering invalid's room would be the cause of Torin's extraordinarily complex computer system to crash and burn. Since Torin couldn't be moved—he hadn't been nor had he moved himself from the single bed on which Maddox had carefully laid him after finding Torin nearly-decapitated—they had to go to him, and with Disaster a constant hum in the back of Kane's head, he daren't go and see his old friend just in case he did cause Torin's sole and therefore much-beloved outlet into the outside world to self-destruct.

Kane also knew the way they were living—well, the way they _existed_—wasn't healthy for any of them. Perhaps he wouldn't have noticed it if he had never experienced anything else, but he had, in those few short months before Katrina…the levees. Kane had come close to death at least a thousand times, he had come to terms with the absolution of death long ago, but he had never truly known that having that acceptance could open up a whole new world to him: he hadn't, until New Orleans, known how to live, and go on despite everything being stacked against his favour.

He'd been taught how to enjoy his shit. To enjoy the parts of his life he treasured, and to get on with the shit thrown at him with grit and determination as befit his once-adored-warrior status. When that shit was over, leave it where it lay in the dead, dusty realms of the past, and laugh. Love, live. Party and forgive. Until the next time he had to weapon up, but embrace the times in between.

But above all else, she had taught him to stop being self-loathing.

She being the female to whom he was speaking on the phone, away from the noise of the entertainment-room—he stayed away because they were all enjoying a film, and Disaster would love nothing better than to blow the DVD-player. Bottles, ceilings, phones, Disaster loved to destroy them. So it was a rarity that Kane used his cell-phone. Not that he was worried about losing information saved on it. He had her number memorised.

It was just that…if Sabin ever knew—here, Kane's chest squeezed with guilt, both for hiding this from Sabin, and for the lingering feelings still wracking his body and his mind over the way he had left things in New Orleans—and he would find out soon enough… They all had their secrets. Sabin knew one of Kane's—hell, he enabled it. But this one… This was Kane's. Could only ever be his and Serafina's.

Otherwise he knew Aeron would kill him, and the godly blood-curse would have nothing to do with it.

Still, Aeron's bloodlust was the very reason he was breaking the promise he had made to Serafina.

She had asked he never mention it to Sabin that he had found her, and in fact, he never had; a strange gold-eyed beauty had dumped him on Serafina's doorstep. Serafina knew the warriors too well, had always done so, to know Sabin would relent in his pursuit of having her join their ranks to fight the Hunters. Especially now. And Kane was loathe to take Serafina away from the wonderful life she had made for herself, and for many others…

But he had also made another promise; concerning Aeron.

She had never stopped searching, Kane knew this. But she had not allowed her search to become her sole reason for living; that was something he and the other Lords hadn't learned in their pursuit of victory over the Hunters. Serafina still fought, yes, but she did so on her terms, against different enemies, and when the fight ended, it ended; she didn't sit, tense, her entire delectable body strapped with weapons.

No, she used to drape herself over a lounger, wearing a little bikini, braiding her little girl's hair, music playing, laughter rippling as water splashed and Kane laughed.

_Laughed_.

Kane knew the stakes in mentioning to her what had occurred the last few weeks. That he was even telling her at all made him feel guilty—towards her, not to Sabin or the other Lords: Aeron alone could draw her where no other argument could persuade her, and Kane had experienced the true treasure that was Serafina's life, the effort she put into making others' lives exquisite, worth treasuring. He would never be able to ask her to give that up, shirk everything, but Sabin would have no trouble in doing so, would demand it, without ever understanding what he was asking, the way Kane understood, had experienced what a wonder she was.

In this, Kane knew he would be intractable: he would not allow Sabin to force Serafina to join them, not for this. Not knowing how Serafina would suffer for it, and just who else would suffer because of them.

He had left New Orleans in a hurry. Their task done, Disaster sated for weeks on that high, the other Lords had carted Kane away from the city, away from Serafina, never—besides Amun—knowing what he had left behind, why he had been so upset the night the levies ruptured, why he had disappeared and returned so heartbroken. Only Amun knew, and they never spoke about it. Kane couldn't. That part of his heart he kept locked up tight, until he could bear it no longer and had to take out those memories to remind himself all he had taught her in those few short months. What she had guessed in hours and a glass of red wine what his millennia-long companions couldn't see.

His leg jigging, emotion burning his throat, he clutched a small, beaded bracelet in his palm, his fist against his temple as he held his phone to his ear with his other hand. His hand was steady, he was glad, but when the call connected and he heard those familiar and coveted yet distant sounds of karaoke, the "Tequila" song, the cackles of laughter and shrieks of the witches' Valkyrie friends, voices telling each other to "_ante_-_up_. _Nada_ _that's_ _been_ _bitten_ _or_ _sucked_ _on_."

"_Enough_ _abou'_ _Myst and Kad_, _we're_ _playin'_ _poker_!" a deep yet sultrily feminine brogue slurred; Màiri, he knew instantly, smiling despite his churning emotions. Gods, he missed that fierce female just as much as he did her constant millennia-long companion Serafina.

"_Hello_?" Kane's heart seized. It was one thing to hear Serafina's voice—that rich, low voice so steeped in compassion and warmth—but to hear her laughing, the rich, decadent, gravelly timbre of it, had Kane's chest seizing with near-painful emotion. She was _happy_. Would she remain so, were he to speak? Should he hang up the phone, afraid to hear her scold him?

"Saff?" He chewed on his lower-lip. A hitch of breath at the other end of the line, and as calls echoed in the distance, the background noise silenced nearly instantly.

"_Kane_, _what's_ _happened_?" Her voice had turned from carefree, rich and happy, to the utmost attention and concern. _So_ _Saffy_, he thought. Mercurial emotions, unwavering fealty. He gave a watery grin, eyes clamping shut, hot tears burning.

"How do you always know when something's wrong?" he choked happily, tears spilling down his cheeks. To hear her voice again… He had missed her more than words could describe; it was like something had been wrenched from his chest—something that had happened many times before—and nothing could assuage the pain or salve the aching chasm, sealing it back together.

"_I_ _am_ _just_ _that_ _good_," Serafina said softly. "_Kane_, _tell_ _me_ _what's_ _wrong_." Her voice was a soft, attentive coax. Rubbing his thumb against the beads of the bracelet in his hand, Kane sniffed and brushed the back of his hand against the tears tickling his dust-scratchy skin; the ceiling had come down on him a few moments ago.

"We found them," Kane said softly, with a heavy sigh. For a heartbeat, there was silence. Then, a half-whispered, "_All_ _of_ _them_?"

"_All_ of them," Kane said, giving a watery smile, his leg jigging again. He didn't know whether Serafina would consider the warriors now living here in Budapest the warriors she had once known any more than she had truly recognised Kane: as she had said, his body was still the same, but his mind, his _heart_…they were different. He had never before been self-loathing, depressed, willing to die and accepting of his eventual and inevitable death; she had looked at him and recalled every time he had nearly died, had known every horrific act made against him, and had burst into tears.

If he had changed…as he knew he had, drastically, and time away from Serafina having dulled and taken over what she had instilled in him…her little mantra that turned those poor children into strong, confident, powerful Loreans…the other Lords had changed too.

Would she blame them, him, for what had happened to Aeron?

Would she be able to help him?

If anyone could, she could.

He sincerely hoped.

* * *

**A.N.**: Hiya, please review. I know it's a different start to the last version of _Delirium_, but again, I can't see Serafina losing her mind. And the music I've been listening to lately has influenced the tone of the story. Plus my better development of Serafina's personality has helped mould this story into something more…well, three-dimensional.


	2. 02

**A.N.**: To all previous followers of this story, I've made a lot of major changes to _Delirium_, most specifically it's Aeron still under the influence of the blood-lust, not Serafina. So go back and read Cha 01 first, or this won't make sense! I don't think Alerts work for replacements.

A few things inspired the mood of this story: _The Lord of the Rings_ film trilogy and their soundtracks, Alison Krauss and Union Station; Florence + The Machine; _Lost_ _Girl_; _Four_ _Brothers_ and _Roseanne_. And, of course, the inimitable _Immortals_ _After_ _Dark_ series by Kresley Cole.

Also, conversations with my friend _chainofcommand_ about what species of Lorean Serafina could be, if she's not an LOTU angel. We've gone off LOTU a bit since GS has made it rather, erm, angel-Harpy One True Deity (God)-centric.

OH! In my mind, Aeron resembles the character "Billy Darley" from the film _Death_ _Sentence_, with the _beautiful_ Garrett Hedlund. Serafina is a combination of Eva Green's and Vanessa Kirby's features (Estella, _Great_ _Expectations_, 2011) and Sophia Myles' and Eva Green's figures.

* * *

**Darkest Delirium**

_02_

The den was once again crowded with a lovesick couple who made Kane's stomach churn with unnameable emotions, and the other Lords who were just as amused—read, _concealing_ _their_ _lonely_ _jealousy_—as he was by what havoc the recent romantic entanglement was wreaking on the once-immovable warriors—hell, Ashlyn had Maddox cooing and watching _Desperate_ _Housewives_ while they read through a _Baby_ _Names_ book for the gods' sakes!

_Something_ was going on with Lucien, Kane didn't know what; by the scent of strawberries and cream that sometimes accompanied him when he appeared in the fortress, Kane guessed it was a woman, _the_ woman Reyes had been researching, the one who had saved Ashlyn and apparently seduced Lucien at the club in the city. Lucien already smelled like roses, he didn't need to enhance the strangely feminine scent of Death by bathing in strawberry bubble-bath.

And Kane knew he didn't; taking over a little of Aeron's housekeeping duties, he had been cleaning the fortress as best he could, knew the type of shampoo and shower-gel Lucien preferred because he had to make lists of supplies and food they needed; Paris had to go out and buy it, and complained about it. Insensitive of him, since the foods he frequently complained about having to go and buy were the foods Torin had croakily, painstakingly whispered for in a haze of suffering. Kane would have gone to buy supplies himself, but chaos tended to ensue whenever he tried to do anything helpful.

He wondered if he had brought chaos to their home with what he had secretly done.

As it was, the warriors were enjoying a brief lull in the chaos of their own lives. Yes, Maddox and Ashlyn were watching _Desperate_ _Housewives_, with a running commentary courtesy of Paris, while Gideon gave his honest opinions about the names he read over Ashlyn's shoulder, he and Cameo playing cards. Sabin was playing darts with Amun—using his favourite knives as the darts, and a mannequin painted to look like Dean Stefano as the dartboard. The others had already asked Sabin to remove the mannequin from the den, finding it eerie and aggravating, but Sabin was Sabin, and the mannequin remained; Reyes was—missing, Kane realised. As was Lucien. The latter was surprising, the former not so; Reyes was still healing. While Kane, probably better than any of the Lords, knew they healed themselves from any injury but decapitation, the fact that Reyes had to torture himself both to survive and to feel pleasure made Kane's stomach knot.

Apparently, the blonde female he and the other Hungarian Lords had kidnapped was only complicating matters for Reyes, who spent his days too distracted with the need for her, and for pain, to be of much use to the others in their research of the Temple of the All-Gods and the Temple of the Unspoken Ones. Much like Lucien at the moment, really, Kane thought, exhaling on a sigh._ Much like me_, he added sadly, _all_ _the_ _goddamn_ _time_.

But even Danika Ford's absence from the fortress wasn't enough; last week, Reyes had flung himself from the roof of the fortress, into the jagged rocks of the mountain below. _Redefines post-Thanksgiving depression_, Kane thought dully, his chest seizing at thoughts of his brief but life-changing months in New Orleans. They had celebrated Thanksgiving and Christmas, birthdays…they had _celebrated_. A concept foreign to war-oriented demon-keepers like them. Serafina's personal style of birthday toasts brought to mind, Kane grinned to himself, memories of icing, freshly-baked birthday-cake and ice-cream flying everywhere as children giggled madly and Serafina's rich timbre filled the room with laughter.

Laughter. Only one feminine voice added laughter to the sounds of the warriors' grunting workouts in the gym, Reyes' clinking hammer and anvil creating weapons in his forge (when he was healed and working to replenish their stores), the sounds of Paris's flesh-fest films and mud-wrestling video-games, the pinball machine and the low rumble of many male warriors' deep voices. Cameo rarely spoke, and if she laughed, Kane knew she didn't remember doing so, and her voice caused such sorrow she rarely spoke when everyone was gathered and having such a good time.

Kane went in search of his old friend, anxious. Not for Reyes' sake, but for Aeron's. In the few brief conversations he'd had with Torin—brief due to the nature of Torin's injury and the nature of Kane's demon—Kane had gleaned that Aeron was a very different warrior now than the one he had been during their time in Olympus. He had been the one to pick up Baden's head the night he was killed; he had been the first to see that eternally-frozen expression of shock, and that was it. Aeron was changed; he feared the deaths of his friends above his own, put his own needs aside to help those he loved. But he also, the strongest-willed of them, lost control, letting Wrath go on a rampage, of which Torin said Aeron was sometimes proud; some deserved the punishments Wrath meted out, and Aeron was proud of his strength—for resting control back from Wrath took strength. But other than that, his selfless, self-denying behaviour was in constant conflict with, Torin and Paris both said, the agonising self-torture that memories of Serafina wrought on him whenever he was alone.

He'd wanted this to be a surprise. But if she got here without Aeron being here…Would she suspect he had lied to her, betrayed her, for the sake of letting Sabin and the others have a chance to try and coerce her to abandon that wonderful life she had built for herself and many others, just to spend the rest of eternity in a fight? Serafina loved to fight, rejoiced in the adrenaline and camaraderie, the exhilaration of having one's life in someone else's hands, and lived in the most brutal world, the Lore. But that didn't mean she would give up everything because Sabin demanded it. And Kane wouldn't let Sabin do so. Their lives were already given over entirely to war; Serafina helped too many people, did far too much good utilising her demon, to let her abandon what she dearly loved.

He found Reyes in the kitchen, slapping together a few sandwiches on two plates, a tray cradling two glasses of juice and the chocolate pudding cups Kane so enjoyed. Kane's stomach grumbled but he ignored it, sensing the purpose that emanated from Reyes' very pores. The argument had gone on whilst Reyes slept; could they ask Amun to read his mind while the other warrior recovered in a pleasure-drenched coma? But Amun couldn't read anything while Pain was writhing in ecstasy, and so they had had to wait, arguing and debating and conjecturing amongst themselves while they waited for Reyes to heal, wondering where he could have taken Aeron that the warrior could not escape. Ashlyn and Paris had been watching the news; no more trails of unexplainable murders, so Aeron _hadn't_ escaped. But how?

As usual, the warrior sported fresh wounds and scabs from old inflictions of pleasure/pain, and with a single-mindedness odd for a hardened warrior like himself, he completely ignored Kane's presence in the kitchen while he assembled a meal for someone, muttering quietly to himself. Only when Disaster shattered a light-bulb over the six-burner stove did Reyes start, blinking, and glance up.

"Where is he, Reyes?" Kane asked quietly, when Reyes turned back to the sandwiches he was now framing with freshly-washed grapes.

"You're going to start on me now?" Reyes growled.

"Not starting," Kane said, holding his hands palms-out in a sign of peace.

"No matter where he is, Aeron will have to be…what? Locked up," Reyes suddenly grated angrily. "Whether he's here or there, what difference does it make?"

"It matters," Kane said, sighing. He reached for a grape, experiencing singular delight in the fact that it was neither burned nor covered in plaster or debris, and tasted so damn sweet and fresh. His happiness did not last long; Disaster cackled as a cast-iron skillet swung down from the ceiling, where hung most of the fortress's admittedly tiny selection of pots and pans, and nailed him in the back of the head. Even with his mane of thick tabby hair, Kane felt that. Head spinning, knees going weak, a strong arm banded around his waist, hefting him into one of the island's bar-stools, so Kane could press his forehead against the cool marble.

"Why does it matter?" Reyes muttered.

"Matters," Kane murmured, his head pounding, "'cause if he's here…I think I know of a way to help him break through the blood-lust. Maybe."

"How?" Reyes snorted incredulously. Kane sighed; he'd wanted to keep it a surprise, give the other Lords the same thrill of undiluted delight he'd experienced at seeing her for the first time in millennia. But Reyes wouldn't show them to Aeron if he didn't think he could keep his woman, Danika, safe.

"Because…I found her," Kane said, glancing up and catching Reyes' eye. He paused. Frowned. Shot him a perplexed look.

"When you say 'her', who d'you—you don't mean—"

"_Her_," Kane said, nodding vigorously, keeping his eyes fixed on Reyes.

"How?" Reyes blurted, his colour leaching as shock widened his eyes.

"It's a long story," Kane moaned, rubbing his tired face. A long story, in which he ended up looking like the very monster the Hunters had always painted him.

"When?" Reyes breathed.

"Few years ago."

"Do the others…?"

"No. And don't tell them. I want this to be a surprise."

"Sure, sure." Reyes exhaled slowly, his eyes still wide, stunned. He glanced at Kane, catching and holding his eye. "We've got to get Aeron back."

"Yeah, or Serafina will do her nut—and have ours served up on a silver platter!" Kane moaned softly. He'd seen Serafina in the throes of her own nature: a Seraphim, a long-forgotten ancient species of Lorean creatures, long extinct but for her and a handful of others: As terrifying as she was awe-inspiring, and even without Vengeance's influence. And if Vengeance got wind of what they'd done to Aeron, they would all be sent wherever Reyes had taken Aeron if Serafina didn't rein her demon in. Suddenly kicking into motion, Reyes dumped the overloaded plates on the tray, draped a tea-towel over the top, pushed the whole thing to Kane as he whipped out his cell-phone, and quickly tapped at three buttons for what Kane recognised as the speed-dial setting for Lucien that Torin had plugged into everyone's phones.

"Take that to the girls," Reyes said, glancing at the tray. "I'll get Aeron."

"Er—" Kane blurted, eyes wide; girl_s_? Plural? And _him_ take them food? It would most likely end up filled with bits of glass or it wouldn't get to them at all. Disaster, the ever-present buzzing in the back of his mind, cackled with delight and he could just see the fiend rubbing its gnarled, clawed hands together. _No_. A whine. _No._ _You'll_ _make_ _Pain_ _mad_. _Hell_, _you're_ _already_ _making_ me _mad_. Impatient snort. One of the panes of glass on the doors to the crockery cabinet shattered, and Kane sighed, biting the inside of his cheek as he lifted the tray. It wasn't heavy at all, given all his considerable muscle, but with Disaster as his eternal companion, he trod carefully, painstakingly keeping his leash on the demon, channelling its need to destroy things due to inaction on a small vase as he passed. Ashlyn had put it there on the polished dresser, and it made Kane feel guilty about smashing it, but it wasn't anything he could just stop doing. It was either the vase, or the two glasses on the tray would smash, the girls' food ruined.

He had a feeling if Danika Ford consumed a mouthful of turkey-and-glass sandwich, Reyes would force-feed Kane the crushed contents of an entire bottle-bank. Reyes' room was filled with weapons; they decorated the walls, glinting in the soft amber light of a lamp, the mirror over a dressing-table with no matching chair; on the bed, very pale against mounds of soft black cotton, were two women.

_Girls_, Kane corrected himself. One was the—well, she wasn't fair-haired anymore. One was the once-blonde Danika Ford, now so thin she was nearly unrecognisable, the dark hair dye doing little to disguise the delicate facial features that were now shadowed and hollow. Beside her lay curled another girl, very much younger than even Danika, her once-honey-coloured skin pallid, her cheeks just as hollow, but her pin-straight hair was naturally dark, a grim halo around her head. She couldn't have been more than sixteen or seventeen. Kane knew Danika had been rescued from the clutches of the Hunters—what had they sent in this second girl for?

Or _who_ had they sent her in for?

He set the tray down on the polished surface of the dresser, the mirror of which Disaster was practically hooting with delight over anticipation of smashing; _No_.

A soft moan came from the bed, and Kane stilled, palmed a blade. He wasn't averse to meting out violence if it was warranted, and most of the time had little control over whether those he injured were innocent or not when he let Disaster do the violence-dishing, but the girls were both human. And so frail-looking. Whichever charter of Hunters had kidnapped them, they had done a bang-up job of making them look pathetic, weak and needy.

Though the natural brunette stirred, she didn't awaken, but Kane crept closer and frowned; she had a bruise to her jaw, several more to her arms, and her knuckles were swollen and tattered. She had fought. _Who_? She looked so young, reminded Kane so much of Serafina's home, that Kane quickly stole from the room, locking the door behind him, and went to his own room. There were no lights; the curtains had torn down ages ago, and the bed rested on three legs and a stack of books, most of which had chunks of their pages missing. Nobody besides Kane had to clean this room; parts of the floor were missing where he hadn't yet been able to repair them; the silvery stone walls had crumbled in places, the debris littered over the floor, and the ceiling scattered dust and plaster over his hair as he entered the room; remnant of his time in New Orleans, Kane carried a medical supplies kit, if for no other reason than to spare those innocents he injured because of his demon some pain. There were bandages, disinfectant ointment, needles, surgical thread for stitches, an emergency blanket, things like that; he picked up the bag and went back to Reyes' room, dousing balls of cotton-wool with disinfectant salve, gently dabbing it on the brunette's tattered fingers. Her knuckles needed bandaging, but she didn't need stitches, and the cuts had already scabbed over. Her wrists, like Danika's, bore marks of being restrained, the skin chapped, bruised and sore-looking. But no infinity tattoo. He carefully treated and bandaged them, and as he reached up to dab some of the ointment on the girl's bruised and cut jaw, an unholy roar echoed throughout the fortress.

He was sure it shook the very foundations, too.

_Aeron's_ _home_, he thought, with a seizing sensation in his chest.

The brunette jerked awake at the sound of Aeron's roar, and Kane jumped; he hid the blade he palmed behind his back, just in case, but the girl was so weak and so groggy, he wondered whether she knew what had happened to her.

"Dani?" was whispered on a breath.

"She's here," Kane said softly, because panic suddenly ignited in the girl's too-large brown eyes. She was very pretty, Kane admitted, but so _young_. At the sound of his voice, she scampered to the very furthest reaches of the bed, coming up short against the metal headboard. That look. He had seen it before, too many times, usually with the children under Serafina's care. In some way or another, they all had that skittish, fearful, knowledgeable expression in their eyes, that look that betrayed so much to those who recognised it, that same look Serafina devoted her life to help erase from their faces.

"Who are you?" the voice was a little stronger now, but parched, rough. "What…what did you…_do_…did you _drug_ me?"

"I bandaged your hands," Kane said gently. "I did nothing to you—my friends rescued you from the Hunters who had you chained up." A swallow, a panted breath.

"Hunters?"

"Very bad men," Kane said softly, and the girl's eyes misted as her breathing hitched, became panicky and shallow.

"They drugged me?" she whispered.

"Did you fight them?" Kane asked, gesturing slightly at the bruise and scratch-marks on her jaw. Her eyes welled.

"Training wasn't enough," she whispered. "There were too many. And then… I don't remember anything else." Suddenly she drew her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms tight around her, shuddering, her expression stark. Tears streaked unbidden down her cheeks, staring around the room with horrified, unseeing eyes.

"What's your name?" Kane asked gently.

"G-g-Gilly," she managed to choke out.

"Gilly, I am called Kane," he said softly, knowing what she was terrified of having happened to her whilst she was unconscious, drugged. "I don't know what happened to you with the Hunters, but you're safe here. No-one will touch you, you have my word." He would have vowed it to the Lore, had she been of it, but she was human. He sighed, reaching for a plate of sandwiches and a glass of orange-juice. "Here. Have some juice, it will help clear your head." So carefully, he handed her the glass, reining in Disaster so he couldn't shatter the thing in her hands. The plate he set on Reyes' beside-cabinet. She sipped the juice, then kept drinking as her eyes lulled in subtle delight, and when she had drained half the glass, she glanced at the sandwich, then at Kane.

"I have to go downstairs, but one of my friends may be back shortly," he said. "His name is Reyes, he will not hurt you. There's a plate for Danika on the dressing-table." He had almost reached the door when she spoke.

"Where am I?" she asked softly.

Glancing over his shoulder, he replied, "Budapest." He heard her swear as she dropped the plate loaded with food, grapes tumbling over the black cotton sheets. Mildly amused, he closed the door on the two girls, locked it, and made his way downstairs. Aeron was home.

Good thing. He expected Serafina any moment.

He wasn't sure if the deliciously evil cackle in the back of his mind was Disaster or his own laugh, because thinking of what chaos would reign with Serafina's arrival in the castle—the emotional upheavals alone would send everyone through the roof!—had him almost giddy with delight.

He wondered if she would bring her horde of devilishly delinquent children. Disaster adored them; children by their very nature were inquisitive, mischievous and _destructive_. In the months Kane had lived with Serafina, he hadn't had to unleash Disaster once to smash a window or break a plate; her horde of irrepressible kids did that enough on their own to keep Disaster content.

Another roar shook the fortress, Maddox hurrying a wide-eyed Ashlyn to their room as Kane passed them in the corridor; and Kane made his way downstairs, hoping to help, knowing he'd only cause more harm than good, but it transpired that, as Aeron had gone ape-shit Wrathful, it took a bruised, battered and bloody yet grinning Reyes and a sweating, bloody Lucien, plus single-minded Sabin and Gideon, to subdue and haul Aeron into the fortress. A chunk of rock from the wall smacking Aeron around the back of the head was Kane's contribution, seeing to what end Wrath's lethal claws were being put against his friends, and knowing Aeron would rather be hurt than see his friends hurt, especially at his own hands.

The old Aeron, anyway.

With a roar, Aeron exerted a spurt of hidden strength, scattering the four, yet his shackles gave him little sway; slashing out with his lethal claws, biting with fangs long and shark-like and reddened already with his and their blood, he dashed away with unnatural speed; a fist to Gideon's mouth had blood spraying as he whirled in a circle before dropping, out cold; Kane darted into the fray, tackling Aeron's knees, the others launching themselves with all their considerable strength on the two of them. A knee to the head, smashing into the marble floor, had Kane struck senseless, the only thought registering being he had to hold on, Disaster humming in the back of his mind, cackling when something scattered rubble on them, a dull thud very close by bringing forth an agonised roar from Aeron, writhing in Kane's grip, the other Lords piled on top of them, pinning Aeron.

* * *

_He caught the tiny crackle of an elusive scent that made his cock twitch and fill, his skin crackling with electricity, with familiarity and…desire. For a brief instant, lucidity slithered through his mind, encouraging him to inhale again, deeply._

_Sweet and oddly murky, rich and moist, bringing to mind sultry lightning storms and candles flickering under mosquito-nets in humid twilight, sipping rum, heat pressing against bare skin like the caress of a lover, the sound of crickets and the taste of something saccharine and tart, making his mouth water as much as the scent made his knees weak and his cock throb achingly. The scent roused memories long suppressed, but it opened the dams, and lucidity flashed in and out, like flashes of lightning in a sticky sky that left imprints of everything else in its wake, tantalising but ethereal._

_Rich, sultry, summer heat-lightning storms and something so vibrantly alive, humid and saccharine. He panted, even as memories battered his aching, abused mind, memories filled with flowers plaited into glowing ruby hair, sweet smiles and fierce bed-sport, the gentle drip-drip of water droplets falling from little glowing toes into steamy, fragrant bath-water, his unadorned arms banded around a supple warm body that glowed through the water, showing everything in delicious, mouth-watering and cock-hardening detail._

_He inhaled again._

_Her._

Mine_._

* * *

For a second, Aeron went completely limp; quickly recovering, Kane shouldered the weights off him, displacing the other Lords, and glanced in the same direction Aeron gazed as if dumbfounded. Kane stiffened, awareness suddenly crackling over his skin, as delight and anticipation fired up his aching body, his eyes drawn to the rich, bronze-gold-gold glow that emanated strongly from a fiery figure at whose toes Aeron had collapsed, now held half-upright by the other Lords.

There she was, sinking a slender oxtail sabre, ending with a sickly curve, with a round, engraved guard and wrapped handle, into a scarred leather sheath strapped across her back, well-oiled and older than Kane himself, the scarred, faded leather embossed with faded runes in a language so old and spoken by so few, the meaning was barely understood.

Serafina wiped dark blood from her fingers with a neatly-ironed handkerchief before folding the blood-stained cotton into four, the ring wedged on her left forefinger catching the light that emanated from her very skin and sparkling nearly as vivid an emerald as her perfectly almond-shaped eyes.

Nobody save Kane had seen Serafina since she split from the Greek contingent of Lords over two thousand years ago. Nobody had seen her since that terrible business with Sabin and Aeron, after Baden's death. Nobody but Kane, and he still remembered the absolutely shock and adrenaline that bombarded his body just at the mere sight of her, the fiery molten-bronze sheen to her pale skin illuminating everything around her with a golden-bronze light, the way her eyes crackled and sparkled like live emerald fireworks, how her hair glowed and flickered like live ruby flames.

Kane's stomach knotted, just seeing her once more. There was no smile on her face, no condemnation either, and Kane watched, seizing tight to Aeron's legs as the others pinned him, as Serafina squatted down right before Aeron, whose body seemed to tighten with awareness even as her nearness seemed to calm his…_wrath_. Kane could hear his old friend panting for breath, his tattooed and battered torso heaving with every deep inhalation, and he thought he heard him mutter in a sound softer than a whisper, yet layered with Wrath's voice, "_Fina_. _Fina_, _my_ _fierce Serafina_."

Her bloody handkerchief stowed in the pocket of her tailored jacket, Serafina reached into a sky-blue designer satchel slung across her front, retrieving from it what looked like a syringe, yet as she did so, locking vivacious emerald eyes on Aeron's, she swayed on her toes, a hand raised to her temple, her head jerking as if something inside was bouncing around like an all-powerful pinball, and her breaths sharpened and went shallow as she went to her knees before Aeron, seeming to sway under the force some internal battle.

In one movement, Aeron shed Kane and the other Lords, yet the next moment, when they had gained their bearings, Aeron had seized Serafina into his powerful embrace, python-thick arms banded around Serafina's little waist, pressing their torsos together as Serafina's hands whispered across the vast expanse of Aeron's tattooed chest, her eyes now flickering with sparks of ember and ruby, showing hints of her Seraphim traits. They murmured to each other, and Kane's stomach seized with jealousy he knew wasn't his to hold against Serafina as he watched the two together; they were murmuring to each other, a language only Aeron's demon, and someone as ancient as Serafina, could understand, long disused from Wrath's imprisonment, and as her pale hands traced lacy patterns over Aeron's decorated skin, his muscles seemed to soften, melt, a hazy sort of peace radiating from Aeron's tattooed face, even as Serafina surprised him with tiny butterfly kisses on his chapped, bleeding lips, her fingertips smoothing down the bridge of his nose, across his brow, tracing along his jaw, down his neck, to his collar-bone, tugging at his lower-lip with one of her dainty fangs even as she gave him more tiny, delicate kisses, darting her tongue between his lips teasingly, nipping at his chin, her hands always working to ease the tension in Aeron's muscles, fingertip delving into the slits for his wings, making him hiss and jerk, growling softly, as Wrath purred.

With a jolt, Kane realised Serafina was still in control, saw the emerald peek through the burning ember of her glowing-coal Seraphim eyes, because she gave him a furtive glance as Aeron's scarlet eyes slid closed, then the syringe on the floor beside Aeron; Kane glanced at Lucien, who saw the syringe and nodded. Silently, he traced for it, uncapped it, and while Aeron purred deeply in Serafina's embrace, Lucien slipped the needle beneath Aeron's skin, injecting him with the contents of the syringe.

Whatever was in the syringe relaxed Aeron entirely, his arms falling, barely holding on to the sides of Serafina's thighs, one thick finger curled in the belt-loop of her expensive dark jeans. He seemed to teeter on his knees, blinking his eyes as children did when they were sleepy, his breaths becoming deep, calm; held up by Serafina, Kane noticed at once when Aeron's eyes leeched of scarlet, replaced by glowing amethyst, gaze heartrending as heavy-lidded eyes remained fixed absolutely on Serafina.

"_Blossom_." The word was whispered, heartbroken and fierce at the same moment, hoarse from Aeron's bellows, and it seemed to Kane, watching closely, that Aeron fought sleep, blinking over and over, his long, fine black eyelashes sweeping towards his painted cheekbones over and over. "_Fina_."

"I'm here, baby," Serafina whispered, the glowing-coal seeping from her eyes, leaving them a blazing emerald, and as sleep seemed to wash over Aeron, his body relaxed entirely, his shoulders slumping, back bowing, until his head rested on Serafina's shoulder, her pale cheek rubbing with tender affection against his blood- and dirt-streaked tattooed one.

For a moment, Serafina's expression was stark, inconsolable, her emerald eyes fierce and glittering with tears that refused to shed.

Staggering, legs trembling, Serafina gently pushed Aeron into Lucien's and Reyes' grips; they carried him downstairs to the dungeons. Serafina remained where she was, still just as stark, her face colourless from delayed shock, and Kane had to hobble forward, trying to ignore his injured leg, to tenderly brush the backs of his fingers against Serafina's cheek. She started, hopping upright and blinking quickly, her eyes darting.

Panting, wiping blood from quickly-healing deep cuts and grooves on their arms, torsos and faces, Kane straightened, listening to Reyes and Lucien slam a dungeon door shut on Aeron; Sabin and Gideon rested hands on shaking knees, all of them when Lucien and Reyes returned sweating, bloody, definitely bruised, and stunned. Aeron had put up such a vicious fight, they had barely noticed his hand was nearly completely severed from his arm; Gideon had pointed it out, stunned that there had been blood and tissue dripping from Aeron's fangs as he roared, clawing, biting, punching, slashing; Kane's leg shook where Aeron's claws had severed an artery, and Gideon looped an arm around his waist hauling him upright, the silvery stone and polished marble, the engraved wood of the panelling in the entrance hall seeming to echo with the silence that followed the brutal fight.

"Tried to bite his own fucking hand off!" Sabin wheezed, coughing, and Reyes pummelled him in the back, Sabin coughing and dislodging what looked like several molars onto the blood-splattered floor.

"Now that's _not_ commitment to escaping!" Gideon groaned, raising the hem of his t-shirt to examine a blossoming purple bruise across his ribs. "Where the hell didn't you imprison him?"

"Hell," Lucien coughed, wiping blood from his bare chest with a scarred hand. Unlike the rest of the Lords, Lucien's appearance was by no means flawless as he had been created; how he'd done it, Kane didn't know, but Lucien had once come home completely scarred from face to right-hip, and when they had asked no questions, he had offered no answers. More than two thousand years later, the mystery still continued.

"Heaven?" Gideon blurted, eyes popping.

"Close enough to it," Reyes rasped, coughing; Aeron had gone for his throat, and his eyes were glazed with pleasure rather than the pain the rest of them were feeling. Grunting, panting, hissing with each inhalation as bruised ribs healed themselves and punctured organs laced themselves together, the other warriors made their way downstairs, drawn by the sounds of the clash—and mesmerised by its end.

All eyes landed on Serafina.

Cameo gasped, hands clapping to her mouth, silver eyes wide; Kane choked on laughter at the sight of the other Lords' expressions. And he thought that his laughter might have roused Serafina from her state of stunned incomprehension. Kane had seen Aeron mere days after the gods had cursed him with his bloodlust; he had been a different warrior then than he had been even the last time they had seen each other; with the bloodlust, Kane couldn't imagine how different he was in Serafina's mind to the memories she had of him in Olympia.

This wasn't the tense summit of Lords in Club Destiny, nor the reunion of Kane and Torin in the cemetery, Torin utterly delighted, laughing, irreverent eyes sparkling before they shut off all emotion when he had to stop Kane from embracing him like a brother—at gunpoint. This reunion shocked one and all, knocking breath from lungs, freezing limbs even as blood fired in their veins, pumping adrenaline and laughter through their bodies, minds whirring on overdrive as the clutch tried and failed to fall into gear, too stunned.

Serafina laughed delightedly, flicking those enigmatic emerald eyes over each and every one, pausing only for a moment on Ashlyn. Serafina had always had a wicked sense of humour; now, at her ancient friends' shock, she gurgled with delicious laughter. So amused was she, having recovered from her own shock—or at least masked it better in the face of ancient friends she had not seen for millennia—she mimicked their expressions, her jaw gaping open, eyes popping, and she gurgled a laugh.

"Serafina!"

"What the—!"

"How did you—?"

"Where—?" Questions half-finished were blurted on shocked gasps.

"I almost missed the party," she said, and only Kane noticed the very fine lines of tension at the corners of her eyes as her dazzling smile hit them all. The only one not struck dumb by her reappearance after more than two-thousand years was Kane; even the very-human Ashlyn stared at Serafina. Kane knew why; Saff was a lot to take in at first sight.

Her eyebrows were neat, expressive, and dark-garnet; her eyes were wide, perfectly almond-shaped, the most intense and purest emerald jewels, fringed with long, fine black lashes; her cheekbones were high, her skin tanned, beautiful, and emanating a strange and beautiful golden-bronze glow. Her mouth was succulent, lips beautiful and plump, made for kissing…he would know… What struck people immediately was not her eyes, which were absolutely stunning, nor was it her figure—tall, neither too thin nor overtly voluptuous, to call her sturdy was a rather harsh term; her thighs were neither too curvy nor twiggy, her arse was…cock-hardening. She was slim but not skinny, substantial but not overtly curvaceous; her toned thighs and delicious arse were caressed by dark, expensive denim; her lovely hips wrapped in a thick swathe of enamelled, round-studded leather and a chunky buckle; her pretty waist nipped in by the finely-tailored cut of her sage-grey wool jacket, which was studded military-style with shining black-silver buttons and closed over breasts that were full and heavy and achingly delicious. Supple brown leather climbed from her toes to her mid-thighs, laced all the way like second-skin with three-inch cuffs at the tops, low-heeled, an ivory-handled knife concealed in a sheath at the thigh. Those boots, those long, supple legs and sweetly firm thighs, that gorgeous denim-coveted arse, those beautiful full breasts, set imaginations running wild.

What drew all eyes to Serafina was not those legs, or those breasts, or even her glow; it was her hair. It was the most mouth-watering melange of reds nature could possibly create. Rich, glittery ruby-reds, darker, succulent garnets that shimmered soft and sultry, the crackling hot red of molten lava, fiery streaks—no other creature in the world could have hair this beautiful, this vibrant and alive. Her hair was partly swept-up, had been brought into a thick ponytail at the back of her head filled with berserker-braids, glossy twists, tiny plaits, little twisted dreads clasped in place by tiny garnet and engraved-onyx beads, with short wisps curling beautifully at her temples, ear and tickling the base of her throat. A warrior-woman's hair, if she chose not to shear it off during war; but the ponytail had become undone, some of the vivid ruby locks tumbling in thick, riotous waves and curls to her bottom, where they curled and brushed against the hand-stitched pockets of her jeans.

There was a smear of blood on her chin, but for the most part it was only her hands, Kane noticed, that bore evidence of a fight. A fight that had occurred before her arrival in the fortress, for Kane recalled her having slipped a bloody handkerchief into her pocket before approaching Aeron. Most likely, as it was Serafina, an assassination. Red-eyed vampires? She was out of breath, her eyes sparkling, exhilarated but now pale, her breaths shallow; still feeling the effects of seeing Aeron again for the first time—and in such a state.

Two things had not changed with Serafina since the dawn of their time together: that she wore two very old, very scarred, star-studded brown-leather cuffs guarding her wrists, and on her left forefinger she wore a thick ring that seemed more permanent a part of her than her legs or her eyes. Two silvery serpents, one devouring, one wreathed in exquisitely-tiny golden flowers, both protecting the vivid emerald set between them, their tails creating the twisted double-band. She never removed that ring from her hand. Her right palm was protected by a strip of leather, looped in place by a thin little band of suede over her middle-finger, wrapped around her wrist beneath the cuff, and where the Lords had been created full-sized and flawless, those cuffs, that strip of scarred leather over her right palm, concealed ancient burns, bite-marks; her arms and the backs of her hands were a network of fine, silvery-white and oyster-pink scars, her fingers and palms calloused and scarred, rough from excessive warfare before reaching her immortality; one scar, just under her ribcage on her right-side, still burned a vivid fuchsia, evidence of a lethal wound healed on the battlefield by witchcraft before reaching her immortality.

Loreans were frozen into their immortality at their physical peak, the time when they were strongest and most appealing, physically, yet even before then—she must have been in her late-twenties or maybe even early thirties at the time when her immortality froze her forever in this blessed form—Serafina had been a fierce, relentless warrior. Her scars were evidence of that, plain and simple. And that she had gained them against immortals, yet had survived the encounters where the wounding party had not, spoke of incredible strength and fearless valour in war. Serafina was a Lorean, a member of the very rare race of Seraphim—rare, because the race from the dawn of time had dwindled near extinction long before even the Titans had gained enough millennia to attain godly powers in the heavenly realm of Titania, recently-renamed from 'Olympia' as the Greeks had called it upon their not-quite-but-nearly-regicidal takeover of the heavenly plane. Serafina had not fought Hunters, never had since the days of their time in ancient Athens, when she had been protecting the recently-possessed Lords. They owed her much for her protection of them while they tried to regain control over their own minds and bodies.

The Hungarian contingent of Lords had believed Serafina had remained with the Greeks all this time. She had bid the Greek contingent goodbye mere weeks after the split divided them all; she had wrested control from her overwhelming Seraphim instincts, which had been feeding off Sabin and the other Lords raring for vengeance, and disappeared into the mists of time, never before seen until Kane had stumbled into the psychic machinations of an insane but unearthly lovely soothsayer, and she had delivered him onto Serafina's very doorstep.

"Oh, if you could but see your faces!" Serafina laughed shakily, a little colour returning to her cheeks, and the spell seemed broken. Clattering footsteps echoed, and panting breaths turned to choked laughs, as one by one the Lords stepped forward to embrace their oldest friend. Ashlyn was there with bandages, Maddox laden with towels, and Kane grabbed a broom, as much to support his own weight while Ashlyn bandaged Gideon's displaced ribs as to get rid of the debris scattering the floor, evidence of their fight; Maddox sopped up the blood, and Ashlyn tutted softly as she spied the blood soaking the thigh of Kane's jeans, which were torn.

"So, Aeron's home," Paris said brightly, his eyes twinkling as he grabbed Serafina for a very tight hug, his hands clapping down to splay his fingers over Serafina's arse, and she chuckled, squeezing him tight in return but saying softly, "Always wanting what one cannot have, Paris?"

"_Always_," Paris grinned sultrily.

"You always seem to get the worst end of the stick, don't you," Ashlyn chided, as she approached with a bandage. Kane stifled a wince, trying to rein Disaster in—the near-devastation wrought on the entrance-hall was enough to satisfy the demon, but around this breakable human, Kane would take no chances.

"I'd best do that," Kane said, reaching for the bandage in Ashlyn's hand.

"I don't mind," Ashlyn said, smiling warmly.

"No, really," Kane said, forcing a smile, "I'm not particularly proud of my choice of underwear, and you can see the ducks through the tear in my jeans." Laughing softly, Ashlyn smiled and handed over the bandage; Kane flicked a glance at Maddox, who put a good bit of distance between them for Ashlyn's safety. Much as Kane would have liked Ashlyn to doctor his wounds, she was just too much of a liability around him. Women always got hurt when they got too close to him.

Memories of Danika Ford concussing herself as he pushed her out of the way of a rockslide came to the fore, and he gritted his teeth as he wrapped the bandage around his thigh. That was the _least_ painful memory of a woman had been hurt around him.

"When—how—why—Serafina, what are you doing here?" Lucien asked, trying to catch his breath in the aftermath of Aeron's attack, combined with seeing Serafina again. Even Kane's chest seized, her vivid beauty so striking, yet there were numerous reasons his heart panged painfully at the sight of her.

She was alone.

And her heart had broken again at the sight of Aeron, Kane knew it.

They had spent only months together, nearly six years ago, yet it was to Serafina whom Kane had opened up to about _everything_. He smiled, always smiled, for his friends, even when left behind—especially then. But really, he was the group's biggest screw-up. The one who couldn't do anything right—the one left behind because he was too dangerous. He never dropped his smile, though. He didn't want anyone to know that, inside, he was just one big, steaming pile of mess.

Until Serafina had opened her front-door, kids screaming as they paint-balled each other, teenagers rough-housing and smashing coffee-tables as beautiful girls threw their heads back to laugh and tippled rich wine. With Serafina there were no secrets; she was the only one to whom Kane didn't have to pretend. Because she saw through the bullshit better than anyone Kane had ever met, and had seen instantly upon glimpsing him that he was a smiling face covering a severe emotional mess.

Kane remembered her mantra, the one she had drilled into him with such heartfelt passion, he had started to believe the words true—the same words she cooed to her children: _You are kind. You are smart. You are important_.

In his years, Kane had suffered what pushed most immortals to slaughter and rage and near-psychopathic tendencies. Serafina had taken one look at Kane and she had burst into tears, the memories of his tortures and rapes and every other bad thing that had ever been committed unto him racing through her mind, as was her Seraphim ability, for her to avenge. The other Lords couldn't know everything—bar Amun, who never spoke and didn't like using Secrets to delve information sometimes too sensitive to know about each other. But Serafina…Kane didn't know how she did it. She saw the basest atrocities committed unto every being she met, and amongst immortals that meant a lot, but how she could continue on, smiling, laughing with her children, encouraging them to grow up happy and confident in themselves and in the belief that they were loved and treasured, when she had those memories cloying her mind… Kane had a few millennia's worth of those memories. Serafina had hundreds of thousands of years' worth of thousands of immortals' worth of those memories.

Serafina glanced at Kane, who was leaning against the wall, the weight off his injured leg. "Well, if I'd known I was to be a surprise, I would have arrived wearing only a bow."

* * *

**A.N.**: Please review. Let me know what you think. In my mind, everything looks so much better, but imagination proves far more elusive than reality in describing it! If I was a director I'd be able to properly dictate the tone of the piece, the actors/actresses (okay, and I'd heavily edit the cast roster!) the music etc. but I don't have a few million tucked away for such a thing (shame).


	3. 03

**A.N.**: I've wanted to write these stories for so long that it's impossible for me to think that waiting for reviews will spur me to write them, so I'm just going to write, and if I don't get any reviews, well…

I changed a bit of chapter two, so go back and reread it otherwise this won't make sense!

* * *

**Darkest Delirium**

_03_

* * *

Paris chuckled heartily as he helped bandage Reyes' many wounds—some inflicted by Aeron, some by his own hand, but all painful-looking and drenching the warrior with pleasure.

"Aeron's going off the deep-end and Serafina shows up out of nowhere," Sabin said, grinning.

"How's that for a spiritual connection. But not even a banner or celebratory cake in sight," Serafina sighed, masking her bewilderment and shock behind humour, hoping Kane had caught it in the brief moment whilst Lucien and Reyes had dragged an unconscious Aeron into the fortress dungeon, because she wouldn't be able to put it into words.

Serafina had spent so long imagining her reunion with Aeron, had envisioned him so many times when she pleasured herself—had to bite her tongue to keep from screaming his name when she was with another male (and sometimes forgetting to)—she hadn't recognised the crazed male holding his own against and attacking four others.

Her chest ached. The heart that had ceased working properly over two millennia ago had seized, swelling, now tearing anew at the sight of the change wrought upon Aeron. Her Aeron.

Wrath had cooed and purred for her, whispering sweet nothings as only a twisted demon could, in a tongue even Tera the Fey would not have understood, but Serafina knew the ancient, taboo language, and she had spoken to Wrath with unmistakable emotions; utmost tenderness, fierce passion, the deepest adoration and most agonising love. Shock mingled with freshly-roused lust within her, heartbreaking, agonising love rendering her almost immovable.

It had not been the medicinal and mystical drugs Mariketa had stirred up for Serafina that had calmed Aeron, for Aeron himself was consumed by Wrath, so deeply his teeth had been fangs, his fingers tipped with lethal claws, his eyes wholly red. Her Seraphim traits had spoken to Wrath, and the demon had recognised her voice and responded to it in a way Serafina would have responded to Aeron's in a reverse situation.

"How did you know how to find us?" Lucien asked, wiping his forehead on the hem of his t-shirt, revealing several bruises and slashes in his scarred skin.

"MapQuest," Serafina replied, earning a scowl. She didn't elaborate. Kane's tone on the phone—plus his admission that he had done as she had asked him to promise and not reveal he had found her—had kept her wary of revealing her source of information, though she knew Amun could suss it out in a heartbeat if he wanted to. His black gaze locked on Serafina's for a moment, then flitted to Kane, his brows drawing together before his eyes widened subtly, and he glanced back at Serafina, a tiny smile of surprise and delight curling the corners of his lush lips.

_Fírïel?_she whispered psychically, knowing he could read her mind. Amun nodded, his black eyes sparkling, and she gave him a small, true smile in response. Of all her secrets, Fírïel was one she was truly unspeakably proud of. She just… _Don't want them all to know yet_. A tiny nod from Amun, and he turned to help Gideon bandage his arm.

"What did you give Aeron?" Sabin asked. "Knocked him out pretty quick."

"Combination of medicinal and mystical drugs," Serafina said. "It should keep him out for a few hours, damper his strength and clear his mind."

"Seemed he didn't calm _before_ the drugs," Gideon spoke up, wincing as Amun tightened his bandage.

"Yeah, that was weird," Sabin murmured. "What was that?"

"That was me…my Seraphim instincts," Serafina nodded, a little disconcerted by how easily her Seraphim instincts had jumped to the fore after so long hibernating to do what was needed and coo and coax Aeron/Wrath into gentleness, and how readily she had receded once Aeron was unconscious, letting Serafina take full control, though she never truly lost it to begin with.

"Well, we should get Aeron settled downstairs before he wakes," Lucien said.

"I'll do that," Serafina said quietly, and with only a brief hesitation, Lucien nodded.

"Not before you tell us what the fuck you've been up to the last two _thousand_ years," Paris said, eyes sparkling. "And you'd better hope Torin doesn't come tearing down here, he's still healing."

"Healing?" Serafina said sharply, glancing at Paris with a frown.

"There was an attack on the fortress," Lucien said calmly, though his eyes were far from gentle. "Hunters…managed to slash Torin's throat."

Alarm flared, warring with rage, the tear in her chest deepening and lacing itself with searing poison. Torin was hurt! Kane reached out.

"Take care, Serafina," he said gently, curling his fingers around her wrist—well, the cuff bound around it. "Your wings are beginning to show." Serafina took a deep breath, not realising she had been holding hers in startled rage. When angered or feeling strong emotion, her eyes blazed like burning coals, the glow to her skin strengthening and warming to a degree uncomfortable for others to experience, her hair seeming to flicker and snap like burning flames, wings of the purest light and flickering at her back, her fingertips curling with delicate, devastating claws. Unlike the Lords, who had been mere immortal soldiers before their possession, with no physical benefits such as claws or horns, Serafina was her own most powerful weapon. Her claws receded, as much in reaction to Kane's touch as to him saying, "They left half his neck for regeneration. He's healing."

"Not as quickly as we'd hoped," Lucien said, looking suddenly weary. "I do not like how slowly he is healing."

"Well, I'm no doctor, but the bleeding is staunching itself now," the human girl said, with a sigh, and her rosy cheeks went a little pale as sadness clouded her brown eyes. "I think, because of his demon being Disease, his cells have to fight the virus as well as the wound."

"That would explain why he hasn't bounced back as quickly as the rest of us have done in the past," Sabin grunted, a finger seeking out the count of how many molars Aeron's flailing limbs had dislodged. "Man, I'll be on milkshakes for three days! That's five teeth he knocked out. And _I_ was being adorable."

Serafina closed her eyes tight, suddenly exhausted. Aeron was slave to bloodlust; Torin had nearly been decapitated… The plague epidemic the last month in Budapest. Modern medicine had staunched the spread of the virus, but it had still hit international news. Of course; Torin housed within him the demon Disease, had shuttered himself away from living beings even in ancient Athens when the demon had been newly-housed in his delectable body. She glanced around the entrance-hall, taking in the changes in appearance of each of the Lords present.

Gideon was turquoise-haired, pierced and punky; Sabin's tanned face was as deceptively guileless as before, meanwhile Lucien's once-heavenly features were married by delicious scars; fierce Maddox looked…calm, the dainty-looking female protected within his strong arms. Paris looked as delectable as he always had, though now he wore a "Toga, Toga, Toga" _Animal_ _House_t-shirt instead of a robe, the beautiful, assimilated male! Kane was once again injured, his thigh wrapped in a blood-soaked bandage, and his hair was a little longer now that Goran couldn't reach him to cut off the multihued locks. There was a harshness to Strider's gorgeous golden looks now, where playfulness and mischief had radiated before; tension roiled from scabbed Reyes; Amun was completely silent but thoroughly observant, reminding her with a pang of Jäx, Malkom Slaine's hulking, silent and giant-hearted Trothan demon adopted-son—now resident of Serafina's guest-house and new favourite playground of Pascal, Rose and Fírïel.

So soon since taking Jäx into her home to help him assimilate in New Orleans life, nothing but Aeron could have drawn Serafina from her home, from the family she had built and now called her own.

It wasn't only because of Kane's phone-call that she was here in Budapest. Yes, she had traced here because Kane had asked her to come—but more specifically she was drawn because of _why_ Kane had called her. She was also here for Phenïx. Despite Màiri's and Serafina's misgivings about her tracking their futures—when she was already tracing_ thousands_ of different endgames, suffering more and more daily as demanding Loreans clamoured for her unique attentions—Phenïx said shit would be stirred up for the best if she went to visit the Lords, so she was here to stir up some shit.

It was one of the things she did extremely well.

As she gazed around at each of the Lords, she battered her reawakened Seraphim instincts back, extinguishing her desires to seek out and destroy evil-doers through the warriors' memories.

The modern saying was that "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned". Well, the scorned women of disrepute were Seraphim—ancient ancestors to the modern Furies.

Serafina's very makeup was designed to seek out evil-doers and punish them, protecting and comforting the wronged. She fought the urge to scan each and every mind and punish those who had harmed these immortals—and the human, Ashlyn, who had lived her childhood in a…

A brief glimpse into Ashlyn's mind, Serafina locked eyes on her, already ramping up to go digging and spur herself into action. A science lab. Needles, machines, and then…lies, plague… Torin. But before that…

Serafina recognised the girl's face. Had seen it, many times, in the memories of immortals she had freed from such compounds as the Order's hidden island, and a Hunter charter in New Orleans she had completely wiped out without leaving any traces. Well, she had helped Kane do so, during the infamous hurricane season in 2005, but it was she who had prevented any Hunter charter from re-establishing in the New Orleans area—and her instincts and power proved such dainty darlings in aiding Serafina in tracking down every single Hunter, Institute of Parapsychology and Order member who had harmed an immortal.

Declan Chase was out-of-bounds to the Vertas, of course, but he was paying his dues. He was a good man, now the brainwashing was being deprogrammed. And a berserker besides.

And even so, it was through Phenïx's machinations that most immortals had ended up in the Order's island compound—for purely _good_ reasons—having used Superintendent Webb for his connections and holding facilities, pushing mates together, reaping older immortals and sowing the seeds for new alliances and families.

But Serafina had seen this Ashlyn's face in the memories of too many immortals, sometimes the very last vision they saw before being attacked, abducted, and brutally experimented upon, for it to be coincidence—and no-one who played poker with the most powerful Soothsayer in the Lore would believe in coincidences, and Serafina didn't.

Serafina wondered if Maddox knew just _what_ he held in his arms so tenderly.

A monster.

A female trained to root out and report the existence of immortals, never caring what happened to them afterwards, not understanding that she had _no right_ to believe she had any justification in pointing the finger and put such superior beings through such lingering torture and pain. Humans called the Lorean creatures monsters, or "miscreats". Miscreations.

Serafina's instincts were honed onto immortals; humans pretty much flew under their radar: immortals were such delicious challenges, so much more fun, and banked multitudes of punishments to be avenged in their lifetimes. So this mortal Ashlyn had gone untouched, but Serafina's hands itched to grasp the beloved sword at her back, to carve her up as she had caused so many immortals to endure unthinkingly.

The Order and Hunters (and by extension their masquerade establishment, the Institute of Parapsychology) all shared information, and sometimes even immortals on whom they experimented; would Sabin demand the information she, Màiri, Ailith and Declan Chase, with the help and direction (and sometimes hindrance) of Nïx the Ever-Knowing, were gathering against the humans who dared believe it their right to exterminate races so ancient they roamed the earth before humans were even evolved? Serafina was from one of those such races, and one of the very last of her own; her best-friend Màiri was the first female born to her entire _race_: they both played poker with the most powerful witch of the age, Mariketa MacRieve, and her incarceration-happy, recently-hitched best-friend Carrow Slaine; the queen of the Lykae, Emmaline; this Accession's OCD math-genius Vessel, Holly the Bright; the most powerful and insane Seer in the Lore, Phenïx the Ever-Knowing, Proto-Valkyrie and Soothsayer Without Equal; the most skilled archer and Lykae princess god-killer, Lucia MacRieve; and the biggest prankster, one of Serafina's best-friends, Reginleit the Radiant One.

She wondered if Maddox would take it badly that Serafina needed to vivisect his human female.

_Humans_, Serafina snorted dismissively. Whichever gods or nature had derived and evolved the concept of the human _seriously_ needed to go back to design school. The superiority complex and arrogance they had given the human race would slowly but surely (or quickly and irrevocably if Serafina could have her say) end it.

Drawing out her sleek silver Blackberry, Serafina typed an email so fast she had it sent, her phone tucked back in her pocket, within seconds. Several of the Lords had frowned at her phone, but only for a second.

Serafina had not seen any of these men, bar Kane, for well over two millennia. That was a lot of history to catch up on, yet they had also shared a lot of history before the warriors' enslavement to escaped demons of the most vicious and ancient of hellish planes. When they had met, being as old as she was had seemed incomprehensible to them; they had been nearing eight-hundred at the time, newborn babies compared to Serafina. And even more delightful because of it.

Her stomach knotted, sinking like a dead weight at the thought of Aeron now, compared to the warrior he had once been, even as her heart seized painfully, the long-numbed organ bursting into life just to tear once more. She glanced at Kane, whose face was pale, his eyes sorrowful and consuming as he gazed at her.

"So…what are you doing here?" Strider asked, all but jigging on the spot in his excitement, his sapphire eyes blazing as he stared at her. So used to life amongst creatures of the Lore was Serafina, she forget her effect on people unaccustomed to her glow, her hair, the way her eyes flickered black and glowing red like burning coals with strong emotion, the sword slung over her back and her scarred wrist-cuffs. Even amongst the species in the Lore, Serafina was an oddity. A rarity, now, her race as extinct as Regin's, though Serafina's had been divine rather than mortal: she had forgotten the way strangers gazed upon her with unadulterated enchantment. Because these warriors—bar Kane—were strangers now.

Her chest ached.

_Aeron_ was a stranger now.

"A mad soothsayer advised me to come here," Serafina said, catching Kane's eye. _Not_ _a_ _lie_. Kane's eyebrows rose subtly, and a soft smile curled at one corner of his lips, the way it always did when she mentioned Nïx, his Partner of the Ping-Pong Parlour. "So here I am. Waiting for you to tell me what the _hell_ is going on."

Ignoring Ashlyn Darrow as best she could—thrashing to eviscerate the human for all she had caused immortals to suffer—Serafina followed Kane as he hobbled into a den, the kind only a band of _males_ could decorate for themselves, with bookshelves lined with smutty romance novels; a giant gumball machine; stripper-pole; mannequin stabbed full of knives and stars; enormous porn film collection; HD plasma television; a purple-felt pool-table; and a giant beanbag in the shape of a burger. A polished sideboard featured several decanters, as well as a polished, hand-carved chess set, and cases of Cuban cigars and poker-chips, well-worn decks of cards stacked beside a few romance novels cast aside, with a throwing-star, a half-drunk beer and a book on baby names.

The human female seemed out of place in such masculine surroundings, and it could not have been clearer there was still residual tension amongst the Lords who had remained to fight Hunters and the Lords who had understandably sought peace. This den proved the amusements of several males had been collected over the millennia. There were ancient pornographic scrolls, a first-edition of _Fanny_ _Hill_, ancient swords mounted on the wall above the television like the crest a warlord of this old fortress might once have emblazoned on a flag during battle.

Millennia had been spent here, in this fortress—a fortress she had seen from afar many times in the past during her jaunts through Budapest. All this time, all those different visits to the Valkyrie coven on the outskirts of the city; wars battled against the Horde in a now-derelict castle deep in the mountains; the parties with the witches' coven…all of those times she had visited this city, they had been here. _He_ had been here.

Her stomach churned again, her heart squeezed unbearably, her mind still wrapping around the fact that she had come so close, innumerable times, without ever realising it, though she had spent the last two millennia searching. All the while, he had been _here_.

Kane poured her a glass of cognac, his face drawn in concentration, reining in Disaster. A porn film flashed as soon as Paris threw himself onto a large sofa, completely at his ease; Ashlyn swatted at his legs, and he pretended to pout before cocking one knee, dropping his other leg to the ground, so Ashlyn could sit in Maddox's lap. Serafina suppressed the urge to shudder, and turned to Lucien, the leader of the Hungarian contingent of Lords.

"To Serafina!" Paris grinned, holding up his glass of beer in mock toast.

"A toast? To me?" Serafina beamed, "Aw." Her gaze sharpened on Lucien. "Start talking."

"The Titans have seized Olympia," Lucien said, without preamble. Straight-talking Lucien.

"They escaped Tartarus?" Serafina blinked in surprise. The prison Tartarus was as impenetrable as the dungeons of Castle Tornin in Rothkalina. _Nobody_ escaped it—because nobody could weaken the god Tartarus himself, and the strength of the prison was tied directly to him.

"And bungled the Greeks into it," Paris sighed, sipping his beer, his eyes on the television, gazing past Serafina's arse to get a clean angle at the porno.

"Cronus has decided we're his new whipping boys," Strider said, his biceps bulging as he crossed his arms over his broad chest, looking uncharacteristically—at least when Serafina had known him—surly.

"Without asking my permission?" Serafina said mildly. "Last I checked, you were to be _my_ bitches for all eternity."

"Ooh, please, Mommy, I'd prefer it!" Strider grinned, tongue between his teeth, eyes glittering, and Serafina chuckled as she sipped her cognac, trying to displace her lingering shock at Aeron's transformation. Serafina fluttered her eyelashes at Strider coquettishly, and he blew her a kiss.

"Anyway," Lucien sighed, "Cronus has given us several tasks. I am to…well, I am in the midst of completing my task. The others are heading to Athens and Rome soon to investigate two temples that should rise from the sea, and…" Lucien cast Serafina a quick glance, running a hand through his hair, unwilling to tell her something.

"Spit it out!" Serafina sighed, hand on her hip.

"Aeron was first to learn of the change in new management," Paris said sombrely, sighing. "We were watching a movie; he sat bolt upright, said the gods were summoning him, and disappeared… When he returned, he'd been tasked with, well… Cronus has placed a bloodlust curse on Aeron, only to be broken when he has assassinated four mortal women."

The glass in Serafina's hand shattered, and it had nothing to do with Disaster. The human Ashlyn jumped, Maddox's large hands resting on her waist instantly to soothe her.

Cronus had dared to curse Aeron. _Her_ Aeron?

To kill four innocent human females. Well, the humans Serafina cared for not at all; Aeron, on the other hand… If he was anything like he had once been, the coldblooded murder of four women, even human, definitely would not sit well with his conscience.

She flicked a glance over the Lords' faces, knowing instinctively that whatever had been done to Aeron in previous days, whatever had caused him to reek of sulphur, covered from head to toe in dirt and dried blood—she suspected his own—had been done to prevent Aeron doing something under Wrath's influence that he knew, deep down, was unconscionable.

"Of course, Aeron resisted, at first," Lucien said calmly. "A bombing in Buda set him off. We've had to keep him chained to prevent him acting ever since. He escaped a little more than a week ago, leaving a trail of devastation. Reyes put him…out of harm's way."

"And where was 'out of harm's way'? Somewhere _sulphuric_, perhaps?" Serafina said, glancing shrewdly at Reyes.

"Near the entrance to the hell plane," Reyes gritted guiltily. That guilt saved him pain she knew he would enjoy too much.

"What of the women?" Serafina asked.

"One at least is safe," Reyes said, and something flickered over his face, gone in an instant. "She's here in the fortress. The others, we know not. They are all humans. A mother, grandmother, two daughters."

"We received no reason for their death-sentence," Lucien said, looking like _he_ was distracted as much as Reyes, and the scent of roses permeating from him seemed to grow stronger, until Ashlyn's eyes lulled, and Paris's breaths deepened, slowed. "Wrath sensed no evildoing in their souls."

"Cronus would not concern himself with four mere mortals for no reason," Serafina sighed heavily. She had been ancient a long time before that dick-wad Cronus had been in charge of the heavenly plane Titania: she had spent centuries counteracting the power-greedy, acquisitive young god's interference in this world, not satisfied by governance over his own plane. Yet for all her recollections, Cronus had never enjoyed many human females. He had had one in particular whom he had cherished and spoiled in return for her unwavering loyalty and guidance.

"That's right," Lucien frowned subtly, his scars pulling taut. "I forgot you are old enough to remember his kingship over Titania."

"Honey, I was ancient before Gaia put out and spawned that douche," Serafina sniffed, disguising her world-weariness with humour. She was far more ancient than anybody but Màiri knew: Phenïx felt _girlish_ compared to them; Lothaire had been an icy-eyed child bereft of his beloved Ivana when they had found him, buried in snow, starving and frozen. Nïx was the first and oldest Valkyrie in existence; Lothaire, one of the oldest vampires, and widely known as the most ruthless.

All-powerful gods were younger than Serafina and Màiri, and as old as they both now were, they had godly powers of their own. But they were both tired.

"I wonder how the Titans got free," she said thoughtfully. "Cumulative worship strengthens each individual god—with the amount of study human schools give to various ancient religions, the Greeks' dominance should have been certified. The only mention Cronus and Rhea get is that he ate _her_ babies, and _his_ bollocks were lopped off to spawn Aphrodite." _Ah, castration_. A speciality of hers.

"We don't know how they escaped," Lucien sighed, "only that they have tasked Aeron to feel compelled by mounting bloodlust until he has carried out the deed."

"Well then, for heaven's sake, let him," Serafina exclaimed. The Lords blinked at her in surprise. "What?"

"They've done nothing wrong," Paris said, staring at her. Serafina, so used to living amongst immortals, thought very little of mortals in general, and if she did think about them, it was only in terms of dispensable, lowly, arrogant creatures.

"I forgot, you do not live amongst the Lore," she sighed. Differences of opinion had sparked arguments amongst them before; she had wanted to integrate the boys into the Lore, where they surely could have become fearsome mercenaries, wealthy—and most importantly, hidden from humans who had sought to destroy them. "You think of humans as _equals_." She shook her head at their misdirected thoughts, eyes flitting with distaste over Darrow, but didn't bring it up further. "Who's going to show me around?"

"That would be I," Paris said grandly, surging up from the sofa with an easy grin, offering his hand; Serafina smiled, touching Kane's shoulder tenderly before Paris could sweep her out of the den.

Five stories, multiple wings, several towers and panelled state halls, Paris took great pride in showing her the gym, full working sauna—he tried to get her in there, and in the bubbling, steamy Jacuzzi set into a stained-glass alcove—and liked the idea Serafina gave him of creating a full cinema-room; after the bedrooms were toured—Serafina finding Aeron's room stark and cold—Paris led her into the wide, open kitchen, a huge caved brick range featuring a six-burner Aga, the refrigerator an American industrial, old pots and pans hanging over the marble island at one end of the chamber, a scrubbed table and chairs and a glass-fronted cabinet filled with crockery, silverware and crystal dominating the opposite wall.

Everything in the fortress, bar Paris's bedroom and the den, was devoid of warmth, of personality. It was as cold and derelict a place as it looked from the exterior. At home, Serafina's kitchen was overrun with finger-paintings; school certificates and letters home from teachers; photographs; laundry to be ironed; books; cleats; skateboards and roller-blades; balls; nail-polishes and magazines; boutique shopping-bags; DVDs and pens; bongs; notices for her kids' activities, clubs, sports; cards and printed emails from friends; piles of lunchboxes; and there was food _everywhere_; the stereo always blazing, something always cooking on the stove; laughter echoed throughout the entire house, and there was usually a baby or two cooing and gurgling with laughter while she and Màiri chatted over drinks and food, while the kids ran roughshod all over the property, playing make-believe, working on intricate puzzles, reading, drawing or sewing custom-designed clothes. The silence and cold of the fortress weighed on Serafina, reminding her of ancient Horde holdings.

She itched to set things to rights, and without any invitation from Paris, started setting about doing so. She brought her iPod dock from the blue Mulberry tote she had slung over her front—Xanthe had just mastered a Hermione-esque spell to make objects' interiors larger than they appeared, for the purposes of extending shoe-closets and wine-cellars—and rooted through the cupboards, surprised to find what she needed, though the bags of flour were sealed, freshly-purchased, and it looked as if the freezer had recently been stocked with expensive cuts of meat, frozen vegetables, Ziploc bags stuffed full of frozen berries picked from the mass of bushes lining the hillside; a selection of potted herbs on the island still retained their plastic wrapping, and Paris sighed, "Yeah, Kane had me buy all this stuff. Dunno why—none of us can cook."

Serafina laughed to herself, warmed by Kane's cheek—and touched that he had remembered how much she had enjoyed cooking with her family. Sharing meals was the foundation of every family's complex network of alliances and friendships, and she cooked with her family every night. It taught them a lot of valuable skills. As Alpha liked to say, he needed to learn how to wash dishes or he wouldn't be able to get a job after high-school.

"Over two millennia, none of you bothered to learn how to cook?" Serafina tsked. _Cooking_ was the most family-oriented activity in her home; everyone pitched in, music blaring, children laughing, teenagers taunting, the baby cooing, the glorious scents of their meals pervasive in the kitchen for hours, the room warmed by the stove, and sometimes meals could last for hours, magazines and homework and creative hobbies brought to the table for everyone to share in and help with as dessert dragged on and they watched favoured television programmes or made their own commentaries on favourite movies.

"I _tried_," Paris shrugged his wide shoulders, arms crossed over his chest. "Didn't quite work out so well. Somehow I managed to give Torin food-poisoning." Serafina laughed at Paris's expression. Promiscuity agitated by the lack of stimulation, Paris clapped a hand on Serafina's arse before excusing himself to the den, leaving Serafina to her own devices.

She sourced out one of the mattresses in the room beside Maddox's, fitting it out with sheets from a linen-closet, and carried it downstairs to the dungeons, where she found Aeron in one of the lowest cells, chained, unconscious, covered in muck and dried blood. She didn't need the key to the cell-door; as ancient as she was, Serafina was legend, and the more people spoke about her—even if just through bedtime stories or discussing the most gorgeous females in the Lore at the local bar—the more power she gained; all she had to do was think it, and the cell door unlocked; she eased the mattress into the corner of the room, and carefully moved Aeron atop it. He moaned, but did not wake, his tense body relaxing, perhaps just out of her nearness.

Serafina had not seen Aeron in over two thousand years. To see him like this, now, it was…heartbreaking, a raw sorrow crippling her chest. The tattoos all over his arms, hidden by muck and blood on his face, glimpsed on his torso, were of violence, death, torture, screaming faces—they were physical indications of how Aeron had changed. She had known Aeron when his hair had been longish, his amethyst eyes searing with yearning and lust every time he glanced at her, his beautiful skin flawless, unmarked, not even by the butterfly tattoo. She wondered whether he tattooed himself—a laborious feat, considering immortals so rarely held scar tissue or permanent markings, but then, he was not a traditional immortal who had frozen into his appearance at his strongest—to remind himself of everything he didn't want to be. Everything that _Wrath_ was, but everything he strove against becoming… Why he had striven against harming those four human females in the beginning. Despite Cronus's curse.

Well, Serafina was older than the recently-restored king of Olympia—and she wasn't afraid of the bastard, either. She knew things about Cronus—and Rhea—that the Lords would kill to know. Like what happened to the excess demons the warriors hadn't been numerous enough to imprison within themselves.

Well, curses could be neutralised—especially by someone older and more powerful. As if he sensed the direction of her thoughts, Aeron's features tautened, he started writhing on the mattress, only soothed when Serafina reached out to trace his features with her fingertips, so lightly, but staggering her with the emotions crashing over her.

Her Aeron was here.

She was with him.

For the first time in over two millennia, she was with her baby.

And things could not be more complicated.

The sheets quickly became twisted as Aeron thrashed and moaned, growling low, still unconscious from the drugs, yet when Serafina unlaced her boots, tugging off her sword, jacket and bra, allowing her mind to succumb to the exhaustion she had been battling and pushing away for weeks, with everything going on with the Order, and Nïx's machinations, helping Màiri with newborn Tatiana, she curled up close to Aeron, and he stilled, breathed deeply, sighed, and chuffed softly in sleep, as soothed by her nearness as she was by Aeron's.

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**A.N.**: Please review! Again, I'm heavily influenced by Kresley Cole's fantastic world of _Immortals_ _After_ _Dark_, so most characters you don't recognise are either hers, or mine!


	4. 04

**A.N.**: Kirsty, this is for you! Sorry it took so long to update.

**BTW**: There will be no Legion.

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**Darkest Delirium**

_04_

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For the first time in a long time, Aeron wakes… _Aeron_ wakes. He lingers in that blissful place between sleep and awake that he vaguely remembers before the bloodlust curse took over—the place where he can still remember his dreams, the reality of his life pushed aside to give him momentary reprieve, and allows him to linger in the peace of his dreams; the warmth of a soft body presses against his, a rich summer storm scent fills his senses, and he sighs softly, small parts of his mind unifying to whisper, _Mine_, in unconscious recognition.

All too soon, consciousness stabs at him, pain shooting through his body, his wrists screaming; his limbs are heavy, his mind groggy, but intent with consciousness; he must kill.

Something is different. He knows he must kill. He hears the women's shrieks of pain and begs for mercy, and they are balm to his frenzied mind, yet now…Wrath is quiet, almost…docile.

Though Aeron knows he must do his duty, to slice the necks of those four women so sweetly, their pretty blood dripping like scarlet honey from his shining blade…yet for the first time in days, he has not dreamt of their deaths. He dreamt of blazing emerald eyes and dirty words whispered in an ancient, familiar language that stirred his body as it calmed his demon, warm fingertips whispering softly over his aching body, tiny fangs nipping at his lips, his chin, the softest of kisses dusting against his lips… He remembers the sting of a needle, and then…calm. Sleep. He had slept without dreaming. He realises the dirty words meant to seduce him into calm were not a dream. They were a memory…and he begins to piece together, painstakingly, the rest of the memory of those warm, soft fingertips, those so sweetly gentle lips, the tiny, cock-hardening sting of those dainty fangs in his lips, against his jaw…

His eyes shoot wide open.

_Where am I?_ He recognises his surroundings; the forbidding dungeons of his friends' home. _His_ home.

"Another prison!" he growls, rage firing his blood quickly and consuming enough that, had he been who he was before the curse, he would have been frightened by it.

But Aeron isn't that warrior anymore. That warrior was weak. Aeron has a job to do.

He fights against his bonds, the need to kill, to slaughter, to feel their sweet blood warming his hands, splashing against his chapped skin, yet as he jerks to his feet, his limbs feel leaden, vertigo overwhelming him, his rage like a vice around his neck as he roars and surges to the cell door. Another roar escapes him as he is jerked back, cold metal biting into his throat, and he thrashes and tears at his neck with his claws, rending skin, but he can do nothing against the metal clamped around his neck, chains binding him to the wall.

They do not move.

_Mystical chains_? Maddox's manacles.

"Aeron."

He tenses. The single word, his name, murmured so breathily, little more than a verbal caress, and like a predator, he stills, and stalks his prey with slow, deliberate movements.

A mattress lies atop the blood-stained stone floor, shadows eating up the soft sheets on which evidence of his slumber—the dried blood, flakes of cracked mud and plaster—abound, the fabric bunched and twisted, yet curled on the other half of the makeshift pallet is a female.

Aeron knows she isn't real. She cannot be. He said goodbye to her over two millennia ago. The same night his _friend_ stabbed him in the back. Or was it a few weeks later? He cannot remember, it was so long ago. But he knows the pain of Sabin's stabbing was nothing compared to the raw emptiness in his chest as they had journeyed north, away from ancient Athens.

Aeron has not seen this female for millennia. Yet he has dreamed of her daily since their separation, strapped in her scarred, studded brown battle-leathers, her cascade of pure ruby hair flickering like live flames as she sits braiding the long, curling locks, an intricate ring glowing on her forefinger, perched on a rock and her shoulders sun-bronzed as she adds a pure white flower to the braid, finishing the long plait and tossing it over her shoulder with the other rambunctious locks before casting him a grin that steals his breath from his chest.

They had proclaimed their love for each other as fiercely as their relentless energy encourages, in the sun-drenched meadows surrounding the hilltop portal to the world he had been exiled from; Olympia. Pristine white marble temples glow in the sun, their friezes painted and immaculate, yet no-one approaches despite the noonday hour; a place of sanctuary, a place of worship—the place they worshipped each other until they begged and screamed. She had clawed his back and shoulders and backside into bleeding welts with her need for him; to reward her for what she gave him, he had picked the flowers she braided into her hair, plaiting and twisting and pinning the vivid locks after their sport had caused the beautiful ruby strands to free, the colour vivid and enhanced by the shimmering sun and her natural glow, as vibrant now as it had been the first time they made love.

So why does Aeron now envision her, not in her lusty leathers, a strip of the scarred pelt across her generous, heavy breasts, pinning them in place, bands tied over her shoulders, another strong, reinforced band with a hammered metal medallion buckled around her trim waist, protecting the tender organs beneath, shorts of leather laced at the sides with knotted cords of suede—but in a pair of dark denim jeans that seem to be a second skin, her nipples straining against the soft, crumpled material of a plain dark-grey t-shirt with a low V-neck that gives luscious glimpses of those beautiful swells?

She cannot be real.

Wrath must be punishing him.

He remembers the needle-prick.

His brothers had given him something.

He roars. Whatever they had given him had knocked him out—and now forces him to envision Serafina outside of his dreams for the first time in over two millennia. He chokes on a sob before a roar is rent from his agonised chest, and he jerks and flails against the bonds chaining him.

Damn his brothers to hell. Why in the fuck have they brought him back here? To rot in this dungeon rather than so close to the hell-plane he still hears the screams of tortured souls. He shakes his head, trying to rid himself of the noise. How he hates it—almost as much as he hates the scents emanating from the portal entrance. Almost as much as he hates his brothers for forcing him to see _her_ again.

The bloodlust had freed him of her face.

And he hates the raw tearing in his chest at the sight of this vision his brothers' drugs have forced on him. With a roar, he launches himself at her. He lifts her easily by the throat, roaring his rage and…and heartbreak. He had thought never to see her once more; his brothers play a cruel trick to send someone so alike her into his cell. To torture, as her absence tortures him.

"Aeron." Her voice is soft, stern, and her eyes glow a vivid emerald, and as Aeron growls, pinning her against the wall, using all his strength to cage the creature in, he realises… The vision is not afraid.

"Aeron, be calm."

"How do you know my name?" he growls. A soft sigh, but no struggle against his tight hold on her tender throat… So breakable, he thinks. Yet… He is concerned. Wrath makes no move to scan the vision's mind for her sins.

She must be false then, a manifestation of his mind. A hallucination meant to torture him, brought forth by his brothers' drugs.

"You know my name," the hallucination said softly. "You know my face. I am Serafina."

That name… They know how it tortures him to hear it, worse than a blade to the back. Yet they gave him those drugs, forcing him to see her.

"She is gone!" Aeron roars; his agony seeps into his voice and cracks it. "Gone forever!" With a roar, he pummels the stone beside her head; his other hand locked around her throat, her eyes skitter closed, more because of the bursting rubble than fear, and she locks them on him again, unafraid, uncompromising.

Wrath roars into awakening. _NO hurt_.

Aeron blinks. _You _don't_ want to hurt someone?_

_No hurt_. Whimpers. Claws at Aeron's mind. _NO HURT_.

Without intending to, Aeron drops his hold on her delicate throat, and he notices that she does not flutter a hand to her neck, whimpering with pain. He staggers away from her, tripping over the edge of the mattress, and bounces onto the makeshift bed, snarling as he rights himself.

"There, now," the vision murmurs softly, sinking into a half-kneel before him, her fingers whispering so sweetly over his achingly-tense shoulders, his arms. "Letting off a little steam never hurt anybody, did it."

Aeron roars and punches the wall again, another cloud of debris and dust billowing from the silvery stone. The vision flicks some rubble from her hair, as Aeron buckles under some injury to his chest. He roars and snarls like a wounded animal, clawing at his chest to rid himself of the pain, and the vision tries to stop him, latching uncompromising wrists around his own tender ones. Such power, she stops him brutalising himself, but Aeron is full of a killing rage and an emotion he can't remember feeling in millennia. His heart aches. Rendered incapable of slashing the aching heart from his chest, Aeron roars and starts banging his head against the jagged wall.

When she tries to stop him doing so, he claws at his chest. Her hands are not large enough to encircle both of his wrists to prevent him harming his chest, and several times her hand gets caught between his skill and the jagged, bloody stone of the silvery cell wall.

"Aeron, stop hurting yourself!" she says breathlessly, and she sounds tearful. Trying to seize him away from the wall, she gives up, with an exasperated, "You're worse than Thad." An instant later, Aeron realises he is alone, and the roar that is rent from his chest is the loudest and most agonised yet, a choking sound ripped from his chest as he feels something acidic burning his eyes. He bangs his head against the wall, clawing his chest, until he feels the tiny prick of a needle.

And then…dreams. He's with her again. This time, they're in the steaming, fragrant baths, alone; white marble surrounded by scarlet silk cushions, ambrosia petals coating the surface of the water clinging to her slick, sun-drenched skin; she alone acts as the singular source of light, glowing brighter with each quick, shallow pump of his hips, teasing her, her writhing moans and those pretty white fangs nibbling on her lower-lip spurring him to deepen his thrusts the way he does when he knows she is close, and needs it. He lets the memory consume him, the way her ruby lips open sweetly as a cry has her body writhing, seizing, her lashes fluttering as her orgasm consumes her, the way she rewards him with a swift, teasing tug of her fangs on his nipples, her fingertips kneading his muscles, her ankles locked across his back, drawing him so deep, her hands moving to cover his as he grips her hips and surges into her with every ounce of strength he possesses, making her scream as she comes again, her breasts jutting against his slick chest, her nipples rubbing against his burning skin, and he brands her with his spend as he roars, going mindless. He collapses atop her, and it is not _un_comfortable; she links her slender, war-scarred arms around his neck, drawing him close, still buried deep within her, nuzzling his neck as he threads his fingers through her soft, burning hair, and he can hear her murmuring gentle words, gentle and praising, and _dirty_. He can't fight the urge to chuckle softly, and the sound makes her preen beneath him, crackling green eyes vivid on him, so beautiful the goddess of beauty is shamed by them.

He can feel her fingers tracing his skin, tracing patterns that do not exist on his uncoloured flesh in his dream; an Aeron of several thousands of years ago had had no markings, yet he can feel her tracing images, and he can still hear her soft words, soothing, calming, exciting his body in a way his exhausted mind can't fathom.

The dream shifts, and he realises he is still partially conscious; he sees the scarlet-spattered silvery stone walls, though as if through a pane of warped glass, hazy and out of focus; he realises he leans against something warm and soft, giving; someone is indeed tracing the images tattooed on his forearms; his shackled wrists rest between a female's giving breasts, while his cheek nestles against her warm shoulder.

For a brief moment, he realises a second dose of drugs has been dealt out, remembering the sting of the needle, and the vision remains; then dreamless sleep washes over him, so blissful, heavy, intoxicating.

* * *

Tears burned Serafina's eyes, but they didn't fall; she wouldn't allow it. No matter how she wished to scream in agony. He thought her a vision, a hallucination? '_She is gone. Gone forever_', he'd said. And then Aeron had started clawing at his own chest, claws raking at the tender, coloured flesh, goring deep wounds that slowly seeped blood all over his already-tattered shirt, the waist of his low-slung jeans. She had traced from the cell as soon as she realised she couldn't incapacitate him personally without hurting him severely, horrified and heartbroken as he had tried to batter whatever was in his mind against the silvery walls, now glistening with his blood, she had traced for another of her syringes Mariketa had supplied her with in exchange for a _Montblanc_ ring. The right-side of Aeron's head was a mess of tattered, bloody skin, and he had slashed his own throat with his claws when he had discovered the metal collar binding him to the wall, but the drugs had depleted his strength enough that he could do nothing more brutal to harm himself.

Something made her chest ache as she slowly lowered Aeron to the mattress, then left him to sleep, and heal. Her knees felt weak, and as she stooped to pick up her bra, jacket, boots and sword from the far corner of the cell by the door, vertigo seemed to hit her for a moment. Or was it emotion crippling her?

She put one foot in front of the other, making her way out of the dungeon, hating herself for locking the cell door on Aeron, and entered the main fortress. Freshly-minted light seeped through the stained-glass windows, dawn just ushered over the horizon of the mist-embraced snowy peaks, the sky tinted with palest pink, lilac and icy forget-me-not, faint tendrils of platinum light glinting off wispy clouds. It was still very early; the entire fortress was silent, except for the den, in which Paris had fallen asleep in front of a porn film. She sought out a blanket for him, finding a raggedy one in a scarred footlocker behind the sofa, draping it over his long form, then made her way up to Aeron's room.

The walls were half-panelled, intricately engraved to seem to seep into the silvery stone of the walls; the panelling and the polished cherry-wood furniture might have given the illusion of warmth, but disuse had rendered the room cold, and nobody had thought to air it out or change the bedding, polish the dresser or do the laundry in the time Aeron had been…incapacitated.

For the first time in a long time, Serafina had woken _rested_. Curled up beside Aeron for the first time in over two millennia, Serafina felt…_right_. Warm, rested, peaceful; _strong_. She had been writhing in pleasure just at the thought of being beside him once more, ecstatic that she was…_whole_ once more. Her claws had curled to clutch him to her, her mind cooing and sighing over the vicious acts she knew Wrath compelled Aeron to commit.

Then Aeron had woken, thrashing and vicious. And despite the dried blood and muck, Serafina's insides had ached for him to take her, after a night of sating sleep and deliciously vivid dreams, memories of the past she usually shunned as too painful unless she lost herself with another partner and screamed _his_ name. Visceral pain had lashed through Serafina's body as Aeron had brutalised himself: watching him claw his own skin had knocked the breath from her; him bashing his head against the stone wall until blood flowed and bone peeked had made her knees collapse. But what had been the worst was hurting him herself, sinking that tiny needle into his arm. Every instinct screamed against harming Aeron—yet the prospect of watching him hurt himself in so many other vicious ways had been unendurable; she had chosen the lesser of two evils, and hoped he forgave her for it.

A warrior like Aeron would hate being rendered weakened by another, especially an intangible force like mystical drugs—and that he was chained, bound, out of his head, unable to stop her injecting him. His lack of defence would agitate him like no other.

But the House of Witches had put their guarantee on the stuff working; the drugs would leech his strength while Aeron continued to be injected with them, and they would help clear his mind. Through her own research, Serafina had honed her knowledge of the demons within the Lords. Their plane had been irreparably blocked, all portals shut down by numerous gods—_forcefully_. And those demons that had not traversed to other planes had been sucked back from their ravening gorge on the world, tossed back into their own hellish plan that made Cade's mercenary Grimslade's home plane look like a playground in Lewis Carol's _Wonderland_. With butterflies and dandelions, grinning suns and cotton-candy clouds. But some of the demons had evaded capture, strengthened by the power they grew enriched by, feeding off the viciousness of humans—and other Loreans. The gods had finally corralled the demons—born beautiful like the Woede, but warped by the conditions of their hellish apocalyptic plane—and imprisoned them in Pandora's box.

The demons were not the source of the evils they fed upon, as the ignorant Hunters had convinced themselves—they were the products of it, each warped by the desire to have that which they had inevitably come to embody. Each of the demons had developed their own set of morals, and with them, weaknesses to help the demons uphold them.

Her research combined with the witches' power was quite a double-whammy; like the Woede, the demons had once been part of a demonarchy, and there were descendents of that race of demons who poked their heads up amongst the Lore from time to time; the witches had gained a contact amongst them, using him to hone their knowledge on the Lords' demons for Serafina, the better to fortify their weaknesses.

Serafina just wished the Lords had grown horns. Delicious…rock-hard…lickable horns… She just stopped herself from growling, Cadeon's image flashing into her mind.

For centuries, while Màiri had been mated with his elder brother, Serafina had enjoyed Cadeon Woede. Their relationship had been complicated: she wasn't his fated mate, therefore when he finally did meet her, she would be expendable as a bed-mate. Yet they had formed a strong friendship; she cared about him, and he adored her; they had spent hours lounging in bed when neither was on a job, alternately fucking and educating Cadeon—something he was fiercely proud and secretly almost ashamed of. Forever trying to atone for not walking into an ambush, and being raised in a simple farmer's home, expected to abandon the people he regarded as his true family to follow a stranger's orders.

Now Cadeon had found his mate—Serafina loved and mercilessly teased Holly, as was her way—and with Serafina in Budapest, she had decided to throw Cade into the deep end of paternal responsibility, now that Holly was to bear a warrior of ultimate good or evil for this coming Accession. Serafina firmly believed Cade's kid would be a brutal menace with a giant heart. But responsibility beyond corralling his mercenaries, and having Rydstrom's back, was all the responsibility Cade had ever known. He adored his nieces and nephews through Màiri and Mads, and had cut his babysitting teeth on them: if he survived house-sitting and looking after Serafina's horde, raising the Vessel's issue would be pup's play.

She and Cade had organised it that Serafina would stay in Budapest while the kids slept, so they wouldn't become antsy by her continued absence, and Cadeon would be responsible for school drop-offs and pickups, and escorting the kids to their various after-school activities. _If_ Serafina didn't anticipate being back in New Orleans in time, Cade was to pick the kids up, get them fed, help them with their homework—he enjoyed _teaching_, now that he knew so much—and make sure Rose didn't slay anybody and Alpha didn't get caught with another male's mate. Both had happened before. Serafina would also be popping in early to make sure Alpha was doing his chore in making sure all the lunches were ready; she didn't quite trust Holly, much as she adored the baby-Val, not to spend an hour sorting grapes by threes into the kids' lunches.

At the thought of food, Serafina's stomach grumbled. The most obvious side-effect of having kids was that she never went hungry; the kids were constantly eating, therefore she was also. This fortress didn't even smell like anybody lived here; in fact, if it had smelled of old blood, it could have passed for a soulless Horde holding.

Her way forward today was set: help Aeron; spend time with Torin; bring this fortress to life.

She also had some things for Kane, but was determined to hand them over when the other Lords weren't around. Not that she was embarrassed or ashamed—she was so ancient she knew such emotions were futile—but she had never expected…

She had been searching for two thousand years, more or less, and would never have guessed, six _years_ after being with Kane, that she'd stumble upon Aeron. Five years barely registered as a passage of time to someone as ancient as Serafina—yet, with a few notable exceptions, she lived in the moment, and measured the years by how much her children had grown.

Thoughts of Fírïel brought with them a brand-new emotion; a tiny twinge of guilt. What would Aeron think?

Serafina had lived a _very_long time, and since her first handful of millennia had never cared what others thought of her… Only the ones who mattered… In any case, what Serafina had gotten up to the last two millennia wasn't for Aeron to judge. He would just have to deal with the fact that Serafina now had Fírïel.

Waking up beside Aeron after having dreamed constantly about him all night, not even his violence had shaken her desire; as Carrow claimed sweet Malkom put it, Serafina was "_needing_".

She stripped out of her clothing, tossing the garments on an armchair by one of the curtained windows, a makeshift laundry-basket before she could find the washing-machine, and tugged the bag she had left at the end of Aeron's huge leather-upholstered cherry-wood sleigh bed; the sheets were soft, a warm golden colour, rumpled and dusty from disuse; in the bathroom, she found a vibrant copper bathtub, a walk-in glass shower, and a cupboard filled with exact replacements for the bedding and very fluffy towels. She slipped into the shower, dropping her toiletries on the mosaic floor without care, binding her long hair out of the way, and sank a finger to her slick flesh, her eyes sliding closed as she licked her lips, imagining it was Aeron's finger against her little swollen clitoris; her legs trembled as she took care of herself, bringing herself to come twice before she was satisfied enough to go on through the morning, wishing they were the hands she rubbed all over her body were his, wishing he was here with her.

_Soon_, a little voice said, with a breathy sigh.

How long had it taken Néomi? And Conrad was a Fallen vampire with three hundred years' worth of his victims' memories. Aeron was fighting off the urge to slaughter four puny females.

Serafina wasn't a betting girl—who was she kidding? That wasn't true! She gambled frequently; no Girls' Night Out was complete without poker and the witches' conjured slot-machines—but she would take the odds on her bringing Aeron back from the brink.

Especially since she was older and far more powerful than _Cronus_, the one who had cursed him in the first place.

A little sated, but trembling with the need for Aeron to wrap his big warm hands around her, she climbed out of the shower, dried herself, folded the towel onto the heated rack and sauntered naked into Aeron's room; a hasty assortment of garments had been tossed together—with the aid and hindrance of her children, who had been duplicitous enough to not want her to go but had been thrilled that they could get away with anything since Uncle Cady was babysitting them—into the bag, and she emptied the contents onto the bed.

Her children had an _odd_ concept of what 'travel essentials' meant—but then again, it was Serafina who had taught them the only thing they needed to pack for a beachside holiday was a bucket and spade and a thong.

She frowned at the odd trinkets and things added into the crumpled balls of clothing to see what was available: with several daughters in their teens, and herself the picture of perpetual twenty-seven-year-old vivaciousness, clothes were shared and stolen amongst them, unless they held specific sentimental value. And she had a rule in her home: unless it was a particularly sexy LBD or a really rad leather jacket, none of her kids were allowed to wear black. It was remnant of a rule with her mega-depressed adopted-son Flynn, who had painted his entire bedroom with black spray-paint after a fellow winged Volar demoness had thrown him over for a hunk of a Noble Fey. She possessed a few black pieces, which she had packed. The majority of the crumpled bundles of clothing she unfolded and examined were all colourful, playful and sexy, modern and tailored, mostly customised, almost always couture, and very authentic vintage. And her shoe-collection was coveted by more than a few female NOLA Lore factions.

She picked out a pair of expensive black lace _Agent_ _Provocateur_ knickers, a thigh-length, elbow-length bell-sleeved very deep-V-necked scarlet wool tunic, fitted dark jeans and chain-embellished black suede Cuban-heeled boots with funky acid-pink and turquoise leopard-print soles.

Aeron had been out nearly eleven hours with the first shot; he had drifted off slower with the second. Serafina guessed a safe six hours were hers before he woke again, and in that time she was set on getting to the latter of her goals; visit Torin, bring this place to life.

Serafina had some experience with near-decapitation—how often had an eighth of an inch of skin and sinew returned her to life? How often had Màiri strapped Serafina's head to her shoulders with a makeshift leather-belt tourniquet/bandage while she continued to fight? And how many times had she done the same for Màiri? Innumerable. But she hadn't unleashed a plague every time someone touched her skin—nor did she have to suffer the guilt of knowing it was her fault that thousands of people died because of her. _Off_ the battlefield, of course.

If Torin was anything like Kane, the guilt of the dead would be destroying Torin far more than the pain of his physical injury.

Serafina also had a lot of experience playing mummy-nurse to emotionally distraught kids: Humour always helped, and she hoped Torin had not lost his wicked sense of it.

'_Moping and coping_' in Serafina's house, as it was called, usually entailed ice-cream; raw cookie-dough; sauces and liqueurs; magazines; violent video-games; their hand-crafted bongs; alcohol; their favourite iPod playlists; heavy, rich comfort dinners and, gender specific, pornos or nail-polish. These were coping-mechanisms for illness or emotional upheavals like a flunked Algebra test. Heartbreak included the demolition of abandoned vehicles with crowbars and sledge-hammers; dancing around the den in vests and exes' underwear with tumblers of alcohol; and getting dressed up to go out on the pull for rebound-sex.

Usually this ended with Serafina holding someone's hair out of their faces in the bathroom, a few stolen bottles of alcohol down their tops, and wondering, as they stumbled into the house with gooey pizzas and two-litre bottles of soda, draped in carnival-beads, whether they'd recovered their underwear. And that was if it was with the girls _or_ Alpha and his friends.

Having spent a decade studying medicine at Tulane—she'd had nothing better to do, before deciding to become a ballerina—Serafina decided to put her hard-earned medical degree to use. Well, she'd put on her stethoscope and give Torin the same treatment she gave her kids when they were ill.

The kitchen was poorly equipped but well-stocked: so early in the morning, the rest of the fortress was still silent, yet it was unnatural to her to live in a silent atmosphere; she set up her little but powerful music dock, put on her favourite playlist, and brought out ceramic bowls; a large soup vat; the bags of flour she'd found last night; and while fresh dough rose for several large loaves of bread—"Jäx-sized", Rose would say, as her new pet-brother pushed seven-foot—the carcass of a whole chicken she'd found in the refrigerator simmered in the soup vat for a broth, the meat she'd picked off it on a plate in the fridge, while a leg of lamb thawed for a late-lunch. She'd already prepared everything for breakfast, and the chicken broth she intended for a lovely soup for Torin.

Despite not being in New Orleans—or New Zealand, Canada, Fiji, London or Cancun for that matter—she wasn't allowed to stay separated from the city for long. The late risers—or those going to bed extremely late—sent her emails and texted her constantly. Nor was Serafina physically restrained in Budapest: in the two hours it took for any of the Lords to rise, and they the earliest-risers of the lot, Serafina had been all over, collecting random things and hoarding them in Aeron's room until needed. Or, in the case of the kitchen appliances and utensils, set them up whilst seeing to the homemade rice-pudding she was cooking, and putting the two-foot-long loaves of bread in the oven for ten minutes to cook, setting them down, crackling as they cooled when they were done, while she started to cook the breakfast, checking on the chicken broth, getting started on pastry and fillings for several desserts for dinner.

This was nothing new to her; catering for a dozen was completely normal for her, and she and Màiri were both naturals at whipping up a feast for a starving (sometimes and/or triumphant) army without a second thought. Necessity had become second-nature. And catering to children was almost the same thing, though the armies had usually had better campfire-manners.

As the boys trickled downstairs, lured by the scent of freshly-baked bread, including a batch of soft, faintly-crusty white rolls filled with halved sausages, bacon, fried eggs, and mushrooms, two-dozen of which were set out on a platter for them to reach for as they sank into chairs at the kitchen-table and island, bringing bottles of ketchup and brown-sauce closer looking faintly thunderstruck. Add to the scent of freshly-baked bread the scent of fresh-ground coffee, _PG_ _Tips_ tea, a pot of hot-cocoa made from a bar of chocolate, and jugs of apple- and orange-juice, the scent of the chicken broth, the nutmeg from the rice-pudding, and the simmering apples for a pie, the entire kitchen exuded warmth and fragrance the kind the rest of the fortress had probably not experienced in centuries.

"Will you marry me?" Paris asked, his eyes wide and utterly adoring.

"Ha!" Serafina laughed. "If I had a million for every time I've been asked that!"

"You know this means you can never leave, right," Strider said, holding his plate to his nose and gazing at his homemade McMuffins the way Gollum would his "_Precious_", inhaling deeply. Paris was dressed in silk boxers; Strider, a pair of bloodstained grey tracksuit shorts and sneakers, fresh from the Lords' in-fortress gym.

"You'd keep me here against my will?" Serafina chuckled, handing Gideon a cup for coffee as he traipsed, tousle-haired, into the room.

"Absolutely!" Paris and Strider both exclaimed, with delectably nefarious grins, and Serafina chuckled as she stirred the rice-pudding, sipping her tea; she had already wolfed down two homemade McMuffins and sampled the rice-pudding.

"Well, good luck with that," Serafina said, chuckling. She bristled as Maddox ushered his human into the kitchen, followed by a tired-looking Kane. He gave her an odd look, noticing her reaction to Ashlyn where Maddox missed it, just as everyone missed what Serafina did in noticing Kane's unhappiness; Maddox's protectiveness over the human was seriously distracting Serafina from her need to eviscerate the human in the cruellest way conceivable to atone for the terrible atrocities she had helped humans commit against Lorekind.

A stray touch from Kane as he reached for a teacup had her checking herself; it was odd that her instincts had sharpened and strengthened more in the last few hours than in the last few thousand years. Only once since the first few millennia of her life had she experienced such a resurgence of acute power and instinct.

The common denominator?

Aeron.

Though it had been _she_ bound in chains the first time they had met.

Just the thought of Aeron had her claws curling, something that rarely happened these days. Curling to clutch him to her. Every facet of Wrath put her Seraphim instincts into raptures. Her race had long ago been avengers, dedicated and delighted punishers of evil; Wrath was the embodiment of all they cherished.

At least, Serafina believed.

The last of her kind to have lived long enough to remember the golden age of the Seraphim waning into darkness, Serafina and her children now made up the majority of their race. And the two others Serafina knew of were so very much younger than she was, _she_ was the source of all understanding of their origins; and that didn't mean anything. She had no idea. She just knew that she lived to punish and contrastingly to comfort: part of her was engineered to eviscerate evil in the most brutal of ways; yet she was also designed to protect, to cherish, to turn fear and pain into love, fun and affection. She and Màiri often debated whether it was instinct or experience that had honed her protective maternal intuition; Màiri had learned, as the Instinct had begun to fade, until it had now been silent for almost half their lifetimes, that sometimes wisdom earned over time through experience became akin to and as trustworthy as instinct, especially when they had experienced as much as they had in their not-inconsiderable ages.

The prospect of Aeron being so near had Serafina's claws curling for the first time in two millennia. With _hope_, excitement.

* * *

**A.N.**: Please review!


	5. Author's Note

**Darkest Delirium**

I have decided to rewrite _Darkest Delirium_; the rewrite, submitted under a new story, is called **Back From the Rabbit-Hole**. The plot ties with my story **Uilleam**, an _Immortals After Dark_ FanFiction Please read and review.

Much love,

mellowenglishgal


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